


The Stars are in Your Eyes

by StuffedCrabWrites



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Aged Up, Betrayal, Dissociation, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Minor Character Death, Miscommunication, Space AU, Violence, adhdib, slow-burn, verbal arguments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:27:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25045360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StuffedCrabWrites/pseuds/StuffedCrabWrites
Summary: Dib and Zim had been fighting for as long as he could remember, but when both Zim and his dad go missing at the same time Dib has some questions only Zim has the answers to.
Relationships: Dib/Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 38
Kudos: 125





	1. Let me hate you

“Come on Zim! Just one little slice! You’ll be patched up in no time!”

“No!”

“It’s for my microbiology class!”

“If you even touch the great Zim with that thing I will destroy this universe-city of tiny biologies!”

“C’mon man! It’ll be an instant A! I’ll let you take your alien tests!”

“Absolutely not!” Zim hangs himself from the ceiling, PAK legs spreading across thick wires and puncturing holes in the wall where they were holding him up. The fight rings out through the entire house as the two leap and bound over furniture, leaving gashes in the wallpaper where Zim’s legs once kept him aloft.

To any outsider, they would tell you fighting was nothing interesting. “Don’t worry about it,” they would drone, “They’ll knock each other out eventually,” and to those same outsiders, the screaming duo inside both appeared relatively human.  
A quick beam of light shoots down one of the wires and Zim tumbles to the ground, a loud ‘thump’ heard when his legs hit the ground below him. He growls up at Dib, pink eyes shining with annoyance as he lunges for the laser in Dib’s right hand.  
“That is MINE! You have stolen Irken technology you don’t know how to use! Return it at once!” He hisses, promptly forgetting the reason Dib came in the first place. Dib only grins, eyes too wide behind huge glasses and the creeping edges of his smile upturned unnaturally.

Tossing the gun to the side the two forget its there as they wrestle each other to the floor, fists shoving at each other, colliding with the others’ face. Dib catches Zim’s soft, small green fist in his own and flips him under himself, using his other fist to push at the alien’s jaw while he knees him in the ribs. A black boot kicks up in retaliation, catching his jaw and knocks his frames away from his face. Undeterred, Dib elbows the alien again in the stomach, pleased when he hears the wind escape his body.  
Furious, Zim shuffles both legs under Dib and pushes hard. He goes through the motion of sitting up and then laying down so fast that when his head connects with the tile, he doesn’t register gloved hands gripping over his wrists holding him down, mouth smiling agape above him with honed, terrifying teeth.

Then it all screeched to a halt when Zim bites down hard on Dib’s bicep.  
“Hey! Hold up time out!” Dib screeches, red in the face, throwing his nemesis off him with no great ease and scurrying across the room. Covering his face, Dib blinked himself rapidly back into reality. Zim had bit him plenty of times before when they were younger, how was this any different? Why did it make his stomach churn and make him want to throw up? He didn’t want to think of that.  
This was just two guys who hated each other causing one another physical harm; yeah. Nothing deeper to look into. The two of them had been fighting for years, some people who knew them would say that Dib and Zim fighting was as natural and normal as most people breathing. They fought at school, they fought at home, they fought at the library, and when Dib got too old for highschool? They fought the moment he was out of university; now, however there were a couple new steps to their daily dance.  
Zim was the first to stand, snapping his fingers together as a cold, metal box erupted quickly from the wall. It shoves itself to the left of the shorter alien so he could pop open its contents and pull out some gauze and bandages and slaps the medical adhesives on the rapidly darkening bite marks.

“Did you have to bite down so hard this time?” Dib complains, hissing at the disinfectant.

“Yes. You play dirty.”

“You’re the one who plays dirty space-boy, what was with the living peanuts in my room?”

“That was ONE time and Zim did not know you were allergic!” Zim pulls some bandages over his bicep with more force than necessary and punches his arm again, eliciting a shriek from the human.

“Hey! What the fuck!” 

Zim broke out in a shit-eating grin and cackles, promptly leaping over him as Dib releases a girlish yelp.  
When Dib finally drags himself home for the night - bones sore and muscles aching - he heaves himself straight to his room, inspecting his injuries. Some deep bruises, couple scratches here and there (he could pass those off as an animal if he needed to), but of course there was that bite. He thumbs at the bandage before ripping it off with a wince, but when he opened his eyes, they weren’t met with clean puncture marks and bruises, instead there was just dried blood and already yellowing skin. ‘Huh. Oddly fast.’ Dib muses, but only for a second before pulling out his phone and flopping down in his bed.

Mothman: Same time tomorrow?  
GREAT ZIM: OBVIOUSLY.  
Mothman: Cool.  
GREAT ZIM: OH ALSO GIR ATE YOUR SPARE EYEBALL PROTECTORS  
Mothman: My glasses? Aw man…  
GREAT ZIM: DO NOT LEAVE THEM AT OUR BASE AND IT WILL NOT HAPPEN  
Mothman: yeah yeah. See you tomorrow space-boy.

When did they start texting each other? When did they start planning out fights like this? At the end of high school? No, that’s not right; they had been texting each other during sophomore homecoming. Freshman year? That sounds about right. After about an hour of staring at his ceiling, counting the individual hairs on his Bigfoot Mysterious Mysteries posters, he gave up thinking about it and decided it isn’t worth the sleep deprivation.  
He has a fight to rest up for after all.

\-----

Dib’s feet pounds on cobblestone as he sprints by lamp posts. He swerves in and out of alleys to try and lose the assaulter, grinning ear to ear the whole way. He glances back for a mere moment and falters, where there was once no one chasing him, was now a green-skinned alien in full military regalia marching after him on towering spider-like limbs. Zim just managed to duck around a corner and swiping his feet with thin, metal legs. Dib grabs the end and twists as hard as he could, slicing his hands, but managing to bend the metal backwards, exposing some wires in the process. Zim howls at that, jumping to the ground and picking him up by his collar. Even though Dib was a good head taller than him since he’d hit his growth spurt, Zim - being professionally trained - always seemed to have the upper hand when it came to fist fights. He was so much stronger for a little guy, so dense, so heavy, and he could throw his weight around in such a way that Dib always ended with more than a few injuries.  
Dib attempts to stand to his full height with some difficulty - fighting off a tiny green alien every day was hard work after all - and tries to push him off, but much to his chagrin, Zim plants his feet on his chest and his PAK legs once again exit their sockets. Zim swung them into a filthy alley and pins the human to a wall. Two pegs lightly pierced Dib’s palms, keeping them in place by his head, another goes straight through his cowlick, wild and unruly as ever. Zim adjusted himself and panted as the last usable leg came close to his face holding one of the alien’s many unnerving rayguns point-blank at his nose.  
He puffs out a few breaths. “Zim is victorious.”

“Says you.”

“Big talk for a loser stink-human.” He retorts, still piercing the fleshy middle of Dib’s hands.  
“Well what were you going to do, pinch me to death?”

“Yes, because Zim is brilliant.”

“Humans can’t die by pinching. Gir told me all about your little plan.”

“I-why-I-GIR!” He huffs indignantly at that, releasing Dib from his hold and letting him fall to the ground with a painful crash among the garbage. Zim slices once more at his cheek out of spite before scurrying off.

“Fucker.” Dib mumbles, suddenly very aware how out of breath he is after all the running and fighting. Well, may as well pick up some food for him and Gaz on the way home. He touches the wound on his cheek gingerly and hisses at the sting. He’ll deal with that later. Dib thinks back on the fight that just broke out. He happily muses to himself; everything had gone according to plan. He was able to learn a little more about Irkens from Gir (if he could be trusted as a reliable source) and best of all?  
He was able to plant a bug.

When Dib returns home in the dead of night, fresh welts raised below his skin, he can’t find it in him to care how sore he is. He clicks on his computer and waits for it to whir on impatiently. The background picture of him next to a wooden Bigfoot with two green fingers in front of the camera comes to life and he pulls up some files for the camera with a few swipes of the keyboard. After a couple rotations of the loading screen, a very pink, grainy image pops up. ‘He must be in one of the inner rooms of his base,’ Dib thinks. As the camera comes into focus, so do the enormous screens hanging around Zim from every corner of the room. Wall-to-wall Irken fills the screens and the occasional speech crackles out of the speakers. Dib can recognize by how Zim speaks when their fights get particularly heated. The speech his computer is repeating is also Irken, but there’s something else there; not any human language most definitely, but also not the chirps and clicks he had become accustomed to from Zim’s mother tongue.  
The camera swings to the left and Zim speaks those familiar sounds to a small robot shining blue light from his eyes. The lights flash red momentarily as he leaves the room, and Dib recognizes what are surely a colorful string of curses when the little robot returns with a stack of pancakes. 

“But Masteeeeeeeeeeer!”

“Gir, we have talked about this.” Dib hears Zim huff out. He watches as two gloved hands shoot in front of his body quickly when Gir scrunches up his face to cry. “Ok, ok! Put it in the fridge. I will partake in the panned cakes after I have completed my latest scheme.” Perfect, that’s what Dib was here for, not pancakes. He watches with rapt attention as screens go up and down, revealing a large holographic ship. Coded data swarm around the vessel and sit next to what Dib could only assume were the plans for his new weapons of destruction. 

Zim twirls some foreign tool in his hand as he works on his project, he glances at the blueprints every one in a while, or asked Gir to fetch some part he was missing while Gir leaped and bounded around the lab, just happy to be included. Each spark and fizzle brought the creation closer to its completion, and the sun closer to the horizon until neither Dib nor Zim knew what time it was. 

Since Dib didn't quite understand the work Zim was doing he found himself dozing off. His eyes blinked open at every opportunity but just met the reflection of a goggled irken on a half-finished metal box. He had been taking notes at every opportunity, but between the language barrier, the sleep deprivation, and the lack of actually knowing what the device was, there wasn't much to take note on. Dib glanced down at his 'I BELIEVE' composition book and rubs the sleep out of his eyes, attempting to focus.  
The book had been something he'd picked up when he had first met Zim, something to keep running theories and notes on alien behavioral patterns, anatomy, whatever he could think of. Over the years the dozens of sticky-notes he had in there began to wear down. The blue pen ink smudged and faded with weather. The constant highlighting and circling lifted and crumpled the paper. 

Dib adored that book, and it had the one picture in it where Dib could see how brightly Zim’s eyes shone in the dark. He flicked at the picture for a moment, considering it carefully. If Dib showed this to anyone online they would either call it a new cryptid or call it Photoshop. Zim was surrounded by darkness, the only light coming from the faint rings of his PAK. He was standing at attention, flashlight in hand obviously looking for something, unaware he was being photographed. The truly incredible thing to note however, was that Zim only barely had two huge eyes toward the camera, and even behind fake lenses the flash made them stand out like the most brilliant pink gems.

Dib groans and slams the cover closed, laying one arm over his eyes. 'No use in spying if I'm just going to fall asleep.' He gently thought to nobody in particular. As he climbs under his comforter and dozed off, he had no trouble imagining an array of evil the box could be used for. Bomb? Freeze Ray? More dancing peanuts? Oh well. Whatever it was he would deal with it in due time. For now, he allowed himself to drift off to the images of their upcoming battle, and of his triumphant victory of his enemy. Yeah - tomorrow couldn't come fast enough.


	2. Prove I'm what you want

Weekdays were fairly dull for Zim, Dib was always at “universe city” - whatever that was - and that always left Zim with little to do. He mopes around his base and slouches onto the large couch in the living room. 

“Gir. What do you think pig-smelly is doing right now?” Zim askes, giant bug-like eyes on the tiny robot across the room. Gir drags a tiny stuffed giraffe around with reckless abandon as he squeals, but gives no response to his master’s query. 

Zim makes a clicking noise deep in his throat and presses a panel inserted in the wall behind him. Out of it pops a small metal cube. The cube shines blue at the edges where the corners meet with an eerie, fluorescent glow. After spinning the cube in his gloved hands for a second, Zim takes two edges and turns them against one another like a two sided rubix-cube, splitting the box open and allowing more of that light to pour out. His antennae relax flat on his skull as small tools extend out of his PAK and get to work. They twist and turn and clamp things into place until before long, circular faces push into the cube with a hiss and the once blue light turns green. Zim, clearly proud of himself and very smug, retracts his tools and gives the invention a once-over.

“What’s that?” Gir screeches when he sees his master is done and starts grabbing at the box.

“Well Gir, this is a-”

“Can I touch It? Can I eat It? What is that? What is this button? Why is it green?”

“GIR!” Zim hollers at the little android who peeks at him dejectedly. “No, you can not touch or eat it. That button is the timer, and _this_ is a bomb. It’s green for unrelated reasons. No more questions. Now go play with Mr. Bouncies.” 

“Mr. Bouncies!” At that, Gir seemingly forgets all about the bomb and goes right back to throwing his stuffed giraffe around the room. 

‘Well’ Zim hums to himself, at least he’ll finally be able to defeat the Dib-stink. If a bomb like this could knock out an elite irken soldier at a mile, imagine what it would do to a weak human point-blank range. He huffs out a small chuckle at that and sets the bomb down on the floor, then turns over on the couch. 

“Yes. No stupid Dib to stop me.” He speaks aloud, then lets his face fall. His antennae twitch and he forces them down with his hands. Whatever, he’ll feel better when Dib is dead and he’s ruler of Urth. 

Zim stared at the coiled wires that made up his rafters, how they intertwined themselves into a knot so large that Gir once got lost in there for a week.That had been unpleasant. Gir’s voice had echoed through the entire house but he was nowhere to be seen - plus, he kept demanding tacos. Dib eventually had to be the one to coax Gir out of the maze that was the overhead cables, but he still came kicking and screaming. The three of them had gone to get ice cream afterwards to appease Gir and Zim would never reveal how that day he didn’t bother keeping one eye on Dib for a surprise attack. He definitely would not admit to the reactions in his squeedlyspooch when Gir dropped his queso and avocado flavored ice cream on the hard tile and he and Dib knocked skulls. How his face flushed green. How his antennae instinctively bounced up to get closer to Dib.

Zim had ended up clawing at his face and darting off with Gir in tow. He rubs a hand over his cheek, the three digits stretching the skin under frustrated eyes. 

He supposes he would have to find someone else to babysit Gir once he killed the Dib. Ugh, that would be so much hassle. 

“Gir! Alert me when the human gets home, I want to get rid of him as soon as possible. If we are lucky the Urth will be ours before Summer starts.” 

Gir salutes him with a goofy smile and giggles.

“Oh, and Gir? Please hold onto this. I do not want the Dib-thing’s camera to break.” With that the alien plucks the bug from where it was hidden on his pink tunic and places it firmly in the hands of his companion. “You can film something with Mr. Bouncies.” Gir rockets away at that, camera in one hand, stuffed giraffe in the other. Zim sighs and treks to the kitchen elevator. Time to get to work. 

\-----

Dib however, was less than motivated. 

He knew in his head he should be listening to his professor but thanks to Zim, he already knew everything there was to know about astronomy, biology, and of course the paranormal sciences. College however, was really just something his dad insisted he do. Membrane got him a letter of recommendation, and he wouldn’t be leaving him alone unless he got a degree. Dib knew his dad only wanted what was best for him, but honestly? He was only planning staying planet-side long enough to stop whatever inane plan Zim had cooked up for good and then he was out for the stars. 

That would have to wait though. Dib lays his head down on a long row of desks at the back of the class, tapping lightly at his notebook with the tip of his pen, occasionally taking it into his mouth and grinding the back between his two front teeth. Dib looks down at the carefully marked lines of Irken letters, trying to decipher them. 

He had gotten up early to sneak into that dumb bug’s base and stole some of the old homework Zim had lying around. The young Membrane never knew why exactly Zim insisted on hoarding every piece of writing he’d ever worked on, but it worked out in his favor. Some of the older papers still had Irken intertwined with english on the pages from when Zim was getting used to the mental switch, but it’s still the best chance Dib has of cracking the Irken language. 

Dib pushes his cowlick back with a heavy grunt. His hands itch from where they had been pierced by PAK legs not 24 hours ago, but other than a bit of muscle soreness there were no wounds to be found. He flexes his left hand out to the tip of his fingers, eliciting crackling sounds at the joints. 

Sigh. Dib stands and stuffs his things into his bag before the period is over. Slinging it over his shoulder he places his hand on an iron-on grey alien. He fiddles with the edge of the applique that sticks out and wanders out of the classroom. There’s still a good half hour of class left but it isn’t anything Dib doesn’t already know, and the professor just rolls his eyes and nods Dib out the door. Perks of being the “genius son” of the great Professor Membrane he supposes. 

Stepping out of the lecture hall and onto the grassy quad outside, Dib slumps himself down under a large willow tree and opens his laptop. He starts up the same program he had last night, but this time is surprised to be met, not with the grainy picture of his arch-nemesis marching about or building, but of Gir playing with a toy giraffe. 

Had Zim found the camera? Impossible, Dib knew he wasn’t smart enough for that; on the other hand he _was_ watching not-Zim play with toys. 

Dib’s eyebrows crease as he hooks some headphones into the side and starts to speak. “Gir? Gir, can you hear me?”

Gir shoots his head up in glee at the familiar voice and darts his head to try and find the source of it. 

“I’m not there Gir, I’m still at school. Where’s Zim?”

His lights in his eyes blink quickly with recognition and he crawls to the phone. “Mary look! Mr. Bouncies is on tv!” 

“Yes that’s very nice Gir, where’s Zim?” Can you take me to him?”

“No! Master said I could play with you today!”

God, that alien. Dib swears when he gets his hands on him. He takes a deep breath and thumbs at the deepening crease between his brows. Gir is going to kill him before Zim can at this rate. “It’s really important Gir, I’ll bring that ice cream you love so much.” Avocado and queso. He shudders at the thought. 

“Prooooomise?” Gir draws out, picking the camera into the air so Dib has a better view of the syrup stains around his mouth. That is one filthy robot. 

“Yes.”

“Pinky promise?”

Dib lets out an exasperated huff and tries as hard as he can not to roll his eyes. “Yes.”

“You got to say it.”

“What.” It’s more a statement than a question, but Dib knows Gir well enough by now to play along. “Fine. I, Dib Membrane, pinky promise to bring you your favorite ice cream if you let me speak to Zim.”

The little robot beams in response. “OK!” In an instant, the surroundings of the camera are going by too fast to process anything but a blur and the now flying Gir in its view. It only takes a moment for them to reach Zim, who is looking over a huge screen of equations. Dib can make out the names of some planets, and the word “BEAST” in a huge Irken font, but he doesn’t have much more time to look over it before Zim notices his visitor. 

“What is it Gir?” He asks, his voice gravelly and weak. Zim turns toward the camera, still pensive, and Dib can see the bags forming under his eyes, even when only illuminated by the enormity of the holographic screen. 

“Mary wants to play with you now Master!”

“Tell him to go away, Zim is not accepting visitors.”

“But he your best frieeend.” Gir cries in protest. 

Zim scowls and shifts his focus back to his equations. “He is no such thing.” 

“That’s no way to talk to your bestie, space-boy.” Dib retorts, then sputters in laughter when he watches Zim fume.

“What are you doing? Hang up this instant you pig-stink. Zim demands it!”

“Oh that hurt my feelings. Right here Zim, you got me.” Dib knows Zim can’t see him but he can’t help making dramatic gestures towards his clearly wounded heart. When he glances at the screen again he’s looking up at Zim from the floor, so it’s clear Gir decided to leave. 

“Now tell me what you’re up to, Zim!”

“Something far beyond what your puny human mind could comprehend.”

“Try me!”

“Stupid stinky is not even here to see it. If you still can not understand my superior language, I will not explain. Why did you even call, are you so stupid you forgot about the phone device?” Zim spits out, one side of his mouth lifting into a smug grin.

“You never tell me about your gadgets over text and you know it Zim, now what is under that huge tarp I saw in your garage?”

Zim freezes at that. His face flushes a dark green and the black antennae secure themself flat to his head in worry and- was that fear Dib saw? “You saw that? I mean- it is nothing, mind your business.” He stomps over to the bug and smashes it under his heel. A second later the image goes black on Dib’s end and he rests his head against the sturdy bark of the tree. 

Dead end. 

He supposes he shouldn’t have provoked Zim like that, but an investigator must investigate! So investigate he will. 

\-----

The sun was only barely peeking over the horizon when Dib reached Zim’s home. He held a melting tub of ice cream in his hands as he knocked on the door. Gir meets him at the porch and screams with joy, immediately cramming his face into the container and slurping it up before it has a chance to melt. 

Dib takes this as a chance to sidestep into the house, past Gir and attempt to see what Zim has planned. He takes out his digital camera and sneaks about, much harder now that he had a few extra feet on him, and squeezes himself into the refrigerator elevator. The world shifts as the gravity begins to pull on his bones and Dib can hear the telltale shouting of Zim nearby. 

When the elevator spits him out, Dib finds himself in the midst of an immense arsenal of weapons and arms. Robots built for destruction and different kinds of guns line the walls. To the left of the room glows a white, viscous jelly that just screams volatile; and in the middle of it all, that same colossal thing Dib had only caught a glimpse of, still covered by the predictably Irken-pink tarp. 

Before Dib even has a chance to stand from his hands and knees, a short, intimidating figure looms above him. Zim grabs him by the shoulders and the metal legs in his PAK extend in record time. Dib attempts to gather his bearings as he’s whipped about the floor, dragged out of the room and up through a window. He struggles under Zim’s grasp until they’re above ground again, where he is able to land a blow square in the jaw. 

Zim stumbles back, but turns on Dib with a new vigor, howling at him in words Dib can’t understand. They only come out as harsh chitters and growls, and it’s clear to Dib he had struck a real nerve. “I told you to stay out!”

Zim throws Dib down and retrieves a metal box from his PAK. It glows and shakes, and something inside Dib tells him to run, so he does. His legs carry him just past the wall from the backyard back indoors. He watches as Zim attempts to scurry off to his own hiding place, while the box’s light grows brighter and the hinges shake violently. Dib pulls his head under the window and covers his ears.

It explodes. Zim wails.


	3. Let me be your Hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boom.

The cries of pain that echoed across the block were deafening. Dib breathes in smoke as the wall against his back crumbles around him. He attempts to move, but stops when a sharp pain runs through his ride. A quick glance tells him he’s bleeding, more than he would like to be, which means Zim is probably faring far worse. 

Dib places a hand on his injured rib. It wasn’t his job to save Zim. Zim had just tried to kill him right? He was pure evil. 

He couldn’t do it; memories of Dib’s life began to zigzag across his foggy mind as he tried to make heads or tails of it. Sure, they had fought a lot when they were kids, but things had changed. 

Highschool freshman year they agreed to stop squabbling at school and made fun of couples at homecoming. That same year, Zim started helping him with his biology homework and Dib in turn let Zim cheat off of him in English. Sophomore year, when Zim had insisted on trying out for the cheer squad to look more human, it was Dib who taught him the Skool anthem. Senior year, well, lots of things happened in senior year. They didn’t talk about senior year. 

Dib was sure Zim would give him shit for saving him when he came around, but he wasn’t going to let him die that easily— not after everything.

Through the angry smoke, he makes out Zim’s limp body on the ground. His leg is twisted in an unnatural direction and one of his eyes has popped out of its socket. Dib pushes down the bile that builds in his throat and picks him up, wincing at the pain while he attempts to shift the weight to a better angle. There is no better angle he finds, so he instead focuses on getting Zim to safety. 

Where was the safest place to keep an injured alien invader? His own base was falling down around him, that wasn’t an option. He couldn’t let him stay anywhere out in the open. Sigh. That left either home or Membrane Labs and Dib didn’t feel like explaining why Zim shouldn’t be thrown immediately into a test chamber after a battle. Home it is then. 

Zim squirms in his grip and Dib grimaces at the dark blue-green ichor that spills from his veins. Making his way across the street, he turns his ankle in a pothole and kicks up a shower of pebbles. He trips under the combined weight of his injuries weighing him down and Zim’s surprisingly dense body. He goes rolling onto the concrete and groans weakly, unable to stir up the energy to get up. 

Dib strains to stand and goes to help zim, but is met with a verbal rebuff. “Leave me alone stink.” he murmurs out, his heart clearly not in it.  
“Oh for once in your life, shut up.” Zim doesn’t respond at that, just shudders as his breathing quickens. “If you die because you blew yourself up, well—” Dib trails off, deciding he’d rather not think about that unless it came to it.  
He stumbles, dizzy and fatigued into the living room of his house and glares up the corridor leading to the second story. Right. Dib shifts Zim’s body onto one arm and uses the other to steady himself against the railing as he begins his ascent. His room stares him down from across the hall. His vision is going blurry and he swears if it weren’t for the Mysterious Mysteries Bigfoot poster that took up the top half of his door, he wouldn’t be able to make it out. He shoves it open with a grunt and gently places Zim on his bed. Dib pants in exhaustion and plops himself down onto the old, brown couch on the opposing wall. 

When Zim’s breath evens out, he finally lets himself pass out. 

\--

Zim wakes the next morning to a very familiar room, Dib’s to be exact. He takes note of Dib’s absence and brings himself to a sitting position. He was laying on Dib’s bed, covered in bandages, a ring of crusted viridian that lay under him. He looks around, and pops his eye back into place when he notices it was still slightly out of socket. The Dib must have tried to fix it himself with no understanding of Irken anatomy. He gives his eyelid a cursory feel and works to remove the horribly-wrapped bindings. He tears through the gauze with his claws and shakes them to the floor, letting his now mostly-healed wounds hit the air as he winces a bit. Zim grumbles when he notices the horrible, tattered state of his uniform. He curses when he realizes Dib had set out a pair of clothes for him; white shorts and a black shirt with the words “MOTHMAN IS REAL” in red lettering and what looks like a humanoid, feathered beast outlined in that same bright carmine. 

“Zim is going to hurt that human.” Zim squints and fidgets with the soft fabric, thinking it over. He finally shimmies off his destroyed uniform and throws on the new outfit. While Zim pulls the shirt over his head he watches the door closely. He spots a batch of Polaroids hanging with no real rhyme or reason, some reaching with strings attached by pins.  
All of them— are him? They span from when he had first landed on the planet a good decade ago, all the way until a couple days ago. It included pictures of Gir, his pak, in and out of disguise, the ship— the ship? THE SHIP! SHIT! Zim rushes to destroy the pictures, he rips them off the wall and scratches them until they’re no more than colorful shreds on the floor. He huffs and stares down at the carpet, hands resting on Dib's bedroom door. Zim bangs his forehead against the door and slumps to the ground. "Stupid,” he whispers out. 

Whatever, he had to find the Dib— he still had to make sure he was okay. If the great Zim was incapacitated then his enemy may be seriously hurt, or worse. He swings the door open and pokes his face out before padding down the stairs on bare feet. Family pictures are lined carefully up and down the walls. His claws gently scrape at the wallpaper, leaving tiny indents on the surface. When Zim reaches the bottom of the stairs, something catches on his nails; confused, he digs them further into a crease in the wall until a tall opening reveals itself. Rose-colored eyes inspect the edges and Zim latches onto the other side with his extra hand. He pulls and wedges his PAK legs into the small slots until it’s forced ajar. He wriggles his way through the opening and is met with pristine, white steps leading down. He knew from scanning the Dib’s home there was an extra room under it, but he hadn’t expected this. 

Reaching the base, he looked on in awe. Shining walls rose above him, much taller than the other rooms in Dib’s house. The tiles that wrap the floor seemed to shine with a pearlescent glow. The seams between them swimming with a shimmering blue color. The tables that stood above Zim were strewn with things Zim had never seen. Chords of black, silver and red criss-crossed over the back wall, and laced themselves expertly into an enormous tube of glowing water.

Dib had once confided in him in a moment of weakness. He said that he was only a clone of his father, and that even if Zim did kill him, Membrane would just bring him back. That day, Dib had crashed on his sofa and they’d watched National Treasure four times in a row. Zim had taken the human back home once he’d fallen asleep. Even now, as his fingers twitch from the memory of Zim tucking the folds of Dib’s childhood comforter around him, of silently slipping out the window and skittering away into the night. That was another thing they didn’t talk about. 

Zim averts tired magenta eyes from the tube; if that was indeed where the Dib father made more of his son, he didn’t want to think about it. His exposed feet slid against the tile beneath him as he scans the room with questions. 

Why was this lab doing down here? Why did it look so different from the rest of the house? Where even was Membrane? 

Zim’s eyes cross over a piece of cloth on top of a row of filing cabinets. Underneath, something glows with blue rings into the thick white fabric. Curious, Zim detracts spindly metal spikes from his pak and raises himself so he’s eye-level with the glow. He looks over his shoulder, and making sure not to make a sound, he pressed his palm on the rounded surface, surprised when it gives off a light buzz and warms his fingers to the touch, even through gloves. He gently pushes the cover off the top. 

Zim is sure he’s never gotten such whiplash in his life. Shining spindles rocket him backwards from the object of disdain. He knocks into one of the tables holding many foreign inventions. They clang to the ground beside him, and he is distracted long enough to recognize the many parts around him. There was a reason they looked so foreign, but all so familiar.  
These were the parts to an Era 10 PAK. 

Zim grasps at the pieces, his eyes wide, antennae vibrating. Irken translator, Irken weapons, Irken scanners.

Irken, Irken, Irken.

His breath quickens and a leg shoots across the room to grab the glowing semi-circle. Zim’s PAK leg whisks it back into waiting, shaking hands. His brow creases and he feels his PAK heating up in his distress.

He was holding an Irken PAK, stripped of all its pieces, but still so clear. It couldn’t be anything else. Zim’s probing antenna flitted around the rival PAK, trying to sense what it could.  
Who did it belong to? Did Membrane kidnap and kill an Irken? Did he have that capability?

He latched onto a faint scent. No, it couldn’t be. 

Zim cradles the PAK and his metal grabbers retrieve what they can from around him, cramming whatever possible into the space inside his own. He tears out of the cursed room with as much speed as he would muster in his condition. 

He would get to the bottom of this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was a tad late i needed to get a commission paid for just for this chapter. and speaking of commissions, the illustration this time was done by the lovely Bamsara on Tumblr.  
> I would also like to extend a special thanks to Nug (Slim-zim on tumblr) for being my editor through the rough waters of present-tense writing. Y'all are real troopers.


	4. Gone

It has been another long day at college for Dib when he finally gets out. Worrying about his arch rival is tiring, especially when he doesn’t know whether or not Zim is going to be ok. Zim is pretty tough for someone afraid of below-room-temperature corn, but it doesn’t make Dib any less worried about him. Dib has a hard time not zoning out on his drive home. The pained expression on the alien’s face when he left him lying on his bed that morning keeps running through his mind. Dib is positive he hasn’t seen him in that much pain in years. It is...concerning. He doesn’t like being so rattled about Zim, especially when they’ve been trying to off each other for a little over a decade now.  
Dib’s poor little AMC pacer pickup putters among the residential roads to his childhood home. It was something he had painstakingly saved up for in high school, and was thrilled to finally get. The nauseating yellow paint job didn't even deter him. This was his first car and he was going to buy it himself. It was, by all means, an enormous pile of shit, but it was his.  
Dib turns a corner while remembering when he had first gotten it. He was a couple hundred bucks short of what he'd needed for it, and Zim had shown up with the remainder and dropped it on his desk in the middle of the night. When Dib had approached him about it, he claimed it was so he could drive Gir to the store instead of having to take the bot himself.  


Dib scrunches his nose at the memory. They may have been on good terms for the last couple years, but it doesn't make him feel any less weird. As he stops at a sign to let some kids pass, Dib crunches over the wheel, doing everything in his power to not acknowledge the pit in his stomach he feels about the possibility of Zim dying. Dib shakes his head and his grip on the wheel tightens and he huffs out a pained noise. His throat feels tight and he doesn't think about how small Zim had felt in his arms as he carried him to bed. He doesn't think about how his stomach flipped when his nemesis choked out his name when he was sleeping, and he definitely didn't think about how his face betrayed him with a smile after the fact. Nevertheless, despite definitely not thinking about any of these things, Dib feels sick. He isn't nauseous or ill, but he has a gross, tingling sensation that was rising up through his toes and spiraling out his whole body.  
Just another thing he definitely isn't thinking about. He’s probably just cold. In the summer. With broken A.C. Yup. Just cold.  
Dib turns into the driveway a couple minutes later and stares at the house from inside his car. Upstairs, in the room he spent his childhood in, is an alien who is probably awake by now. He rubs the back of his neck as he grabs his bag and steps out the side door.  
He rushes upstairs to see if Zim is ok, maybe to help patch him up if need be. Dib pushes open the door to his room to find no such alien. He frowns. "What were you thinking?" He grumbles to himself. "That he'd wake up and stay? Way to be delusional."  
Since Zim is nowhere to be found, he opts to pull out his phone and message him, just to make sure he's ok.  
Mothman: Are you ok enough to fight today?  
He tosses the phone onto his desk and flops onto his bed.  
He’s exhausted.  
It’s only a couple minutes before his phone replies with a buzz, but not from who he’s expecting.

Me, but Goth: have you talked to dad lately  
Mothman: I’ve been pretty busy, what does he need this time?

Dib clicks out the text and lets his head slump over to one side. God, what is it this time? Was he going to demand another family dinner for an excuse to make sure Dib is living up to his impossible standards? Not happening. His attention catches on his research notebook laying open on the nightstand. A square pink post-it is stuck on an open page, the edges curling up where the adhesive isn't quite sticking. Dib rolls to his side and thumbs at it. He’s pretty sure he left the book in his desk last night.  
In neat, very rigid handwriting is a 6-letter word he can't read. With confusion, he sits upright and grabs the book, glancing at the open page. In the section where he was attempting to decipher the Irken alphabet was a letter-to-symbol grid fully filled out in the same handwriting as the note. Zim had taken the time to look over his notes and fill in the blanks. His own verifiable Rosetta Stone of the Irken language. After a couple seconds of comparing symbols, Dib is able to figure the note out.  
"thanks"

Something in his chest goes soft, but he pushes it down in favor of picking his phone back up at the next vibrate.  
Me, but Goth: shit  
Me, but Goth: dad is gone

Dib frowns and almost does a double take. What? Gone how?

Mothman: What are you talking about? We spoke to him this morning.  
Me, but Goth: he never went into work  
Me, but Goth: i tried calling home and didn't get an answer

Dib presses the call button before he can form a coherent reason not to. Gaz picks up almost instantly.

"What do you mean he's gone?" Dib’s head is spinning and he's quickly developing a stress headache. 

"We don't know, he just is."

"We?" 

"Everyone at the lab! I even called Assistant Bot to relay a message and-" She pauses and he can hear his sister's breath shudder over the line. "Assistant Bot is offline."

Wait. No. That can't be right. His dad had created Assistant Bot the summer before his freshman year of highschool. He’s always running. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. He had affectionately been named Abe. When his dad had gotten a message from Abe before dinner on Gaz's birthday one year, that was when Dib gave up on his dad. His dad is always on trips, but during an emergency he and his sister can always reach him on Abe. That’s what he was told. "Are you sure he's not just getting maintenance?" Dib hesitates, already knowing the answer. Abe doesn't need upkeep. His dad made sure of that.

"Dib. Courtney said she found him in a supply closet. His memory core had been taken out." 

"Vandalism?" He falters.

"Expertly. Taken out."

Definitely not vandalism. 

"I-I'll see what I can do." Gaz hums on the other end, but Dib hangs up before she can respond.  
He throws himself out of bed, no longer tired, and settles at his desk. He decides to pour himself into learning a new language instead of thinking about anything else. Dib doesn't care to see Zim text him back until several hours later.

GREAT ZIM: NO.  
\---  
Zim is, in a few words, not doing well. He bends over his steel table in the deepest parts of his lab and prods at his recent discovery to see if he can access the data files. He has to find out who this could have belonged to. In human terms, it’s ancient, pushing well over a millennia old, so why was it in the Dib’s house? He can't capture Zim, much less a being with a minimum 900 years more experience.  
He doesn't talk to Dib for more than a couple sentences at a time to cancel whatever plans they have that day, and Dib doesn't complain. Not as much as he usually would; humans are whiny like that.  
So Zim pours himself into his work. It’s more difficult than he would like to admit that he can’t see Dib, and if he pours himself deeper into this work to distract himself? Well, it isn’t like anyone is there to know.  
“Gir.” Zim calls, voice hoarse from the disuse. He doesn’t jump when his companion appears before him a second later, saluting with a completely blank stare. “Gir, could you— would you mind checking on Dib?”

“Whyyyyyy?”

“Please.” He stops moving his hands to work on the project and his head hangs with the question. Thankfully, Gir blinks in recognition and nods furiously.

“I love you!” 

The exclamation surprises Zim and he glances over at the tiny machine with fondness. ”Yeah, thanks Gir. What would you like for dinner?”

“Tacos! And gummy bears! Aaaaand cake!”

Zim rubs sleep out of his eyes. “Sounds good. Why don’t you ask Dib to take you.” It’s more of a request than a suggestion, but the little android doesn’t seem to mind. Gir leaves at that, and as he crashes through the ceiling he leaves a crater in his wake. It only takes a few seconds for the screen behind him to flicker to life from the eyes of Gir. When he sees Dib answer the door through a pink filter and look down at the sidekick, he’s satisfied. Dib at least doesn’t seem too broken up about not being able to fight today.

This is how it goes for a while. Dib will text him, Zim will cancel, and Gir will be sent over to keep an eye on him. Even if that means stuffing Dib’s face with junk food and making him watch The Scary Monkey show with him every night, but if Dib complains, he doesn’t do it in front of Gir. Often.  
Dib eventually stops texting. After about the 50th time of getting the response that Zim was  
“busy” or he “didn’t build anything”, he gave up. Strangely enough, he doesn’t try to break in. Not once in the span of a month does Zim hear glass break or an alarm go off. He does check in on the cameras every once in a while, but Dib has only shown up once. When Zim turns on the screen and allows it to hum to life, giving the very dark room he encased himself in sudden light, he blinks to adjust to the new sensation. Dib is at the door, looking very tired and very pale. The human is slouched over and he has toothpaste in his hair, which is now droopy and has lost its sheen. His signature cowlick is dangling limply in front of puffy, red eyes. Dib pulls a hand down his face as the other hovers near the door. Zim catches the red light of the gnome eyes behind him and rushes to shut them off, tangling himself in a mess of cables he’d left on the floor.  
When had he gotten this bad? It has only been about a month, right? And Dib is knocking? The robo-parents are answering the door before Zim realizes he’s let them out. The door is promptly torn off its hinges as the robo-dad opens it in Dib’s face. Dib, however, doesn’t seem to have any kind of reaction. He mumbles a dry ‘thanks’ as he pushes through to the living room, Gir scooting forward in a worm-like move close behind him.  
Zim can’t convince himself to move from his spot to stop him, or let him down, so instead he watches with bated breath as Dib glances lethargically around the room before staring at the ceiling. 

“Hey, computer dude?” He asks quietly. A pop-up appears on Zim’s screen in his native language: “ALLOW REPLY?” And no sooner does he check “YES” that the computer blinks to life and answers.

“WHAT.”

“Where is Zim?”

“NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.”

“Please, I— has he been ignoring me?” Something tugs in Zim’s chest and he swallows like a spoon is stuck in his throat. 

“DATA SHOWS ZIM HAS RECEIVED ALL 235 TEXTS FROM DESIGNATION: MOTHMAN.”

“Oh.” The way he stares forward blankly at that could destroy even the strongest invader. 

“Let him down.” Zim speaks to the computer. He turns the screen off and goes back to the table he was working on, quickly stashing away the Pak where Dib can’t find it. It’s only a couple minutes before Dib is stepping out of the elevator, hands in pockets, eyes to the ground. Zim blames himself that he isn’t wearing his trenchcoat. Instead, he wears a lime green shirt with the word “Boo!” written over and over to form a ghost. The shirt is dirty and has a hole where the shoulder meets the collar. It also stinks; how long has he been wearing it?

“Hey.” Zim tries cautiously. 

Silence, and then. “You left.” Oh, yeah, ouch. He can’t exactly tell Dib what’s going on, but he deserves some sort of explanation, doesn’t he? 

“I’ve been busy.”

Dib fumes and grits his teeth. He stomps over to where Zim stands and balls his fists with tears in his eyes. “Bullshit you’ve been busy. You’ve always been working on something, but that never caused you to straight up ignore me.”

“Dib, I—“

“Is that why you left during homecoming?” Dib chokes out, legs wobbling beneath him. Now that really hurt. Zim scrunches his eyebrows and faces Dib head on, lifting his chin to look him in the eye.

“That’s not fair and you know it, I—“

“Zim, you abandoned me back then and you abandoned me again now, what am I supposed to think?” Zim stares down at his boots like they’re the most fascinating color in the world. He doesn’t understand. He didn’t then and he doubts he’ll listen now. He’s quiet for a couple beats before looking back up into Dib’s walnut-colored eyes. Zim doesn’t like walnuts, but he can’t help but not-hate Dib’s eyes. 

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t need you to be sorry, I need you to to tell me what’s been going on with you!”

“With me? Dib, you come to Zim’s base looking like you’re about to drop dead and have the nerve to tell ZIM something is wrong?” He stands on his toes to reach eye-level, jabbing a finger against Dib’s chest and totally ignores how he can feel his ribs through his glove.  
Dib grabs Zim by the wrist with a fire in his eyes and turns it over, tossing him to the ground. Zim scrambles back onto his feet, attempting to get his bearings. “Fine then. It’s a fight.”

“Finally.”

Dib ties his cowlick into a mess of scraggy hair with a rubber band. The next moment, Dib’s hand connects with Zim’s collarbone with a speed much too fast for how sleep deprived he seems. Zim is able to catch it this time, leaping above him and crashing back down feet-first onto Dib’s back. Dib swings around, attempting to right his footing and grabs hold of an antennae and pulls. The shriek it elicits from Zim is more than a little mortifying.

“You left me!” Dib screams, moving both hands to Zim’s tunic, pulling him a couple inches off the ground into the air.

“You wouldn’t understand—“

“Try me!”

“Dib, I can’t—“

“My dad is gone, Zim.” 

Oh. 

Dib releases him from his grip and slumps down onto the floor, curing his legs up against his chest and bowing his head into his knees. “Nobody knows where he is.” Zim lowers himself down to the cold concrete and sits on his knees, wary of making any kind of response. He doesn’t have to say anything because Dib responds for him.

“Gaz told me. I spoke to him one morning and he left for work, but— I mean I thought he was leaving for work, but— he’s gone. He’s just gone. Nobody can get into contact with him, his robots are down, and the house is empty.” He pauses.

“I couldn’t lose you too.” Zim suddenly feels very small again, like he’s back in middle school when he was the shortest irken he knew. 

“You should leave.” No wait fuck that’s not what he meant.

“Excuse me?” Dib exclaims, giving him a disgusted look. “I come in here and spill my heart out and you tell me to leave?”

“No. Together. Let’s get you out of here, and we can talk about what happened?”

“Why are you being so nice about this? Shouldn’t you want to kill me?”

“If I wanted you dead, you would be already. It’s time for ice cream.” 

Gir finally makes his appearance at the mention. “Ooooooh can I come?” He grins jovially, unable to read the room. 

“Yes Gir, you can come. But uh—” Zim turns to Dib and puts his hand on his face where a nose would be. “You should maybe change. And shower.”

For the first time in exactly 37 days, 8 hours and 52 seconds; he hears Dib laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am VERY sorry i fell out of writing, I'm trying to develop some good habits so it'll actually get written, I promise this fic is my baby and I even have the entire story outlined, there's like 18k words in my google doc, so please be patient with me.  
> This time I drew the picture, you can see more of my art at stuffedcrabco on tumblr or instagram! Thanks for supporting me!  
> Once again thank you to my two amazing editors who are getting increasingly annoyed at my misuse of commas I love you guys. Sumevian on A03 and Galactic who didn't give me their social media >: (


	5. May I have some Depression with that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for dissociation. If you want to skip this chapter,  
> Two guy go to Braums, Gaz tells Dib she's in charge of the company, and Zim has a sad memory and accidentally drives into a forest.

The drive to the ice cream place would be dead silent if not for Gir enthusiastically bouncing around in the back seat, booster seat sitting unhelpfully underneath him. Dib glances at Zim every so often, he was sitting with his face toward the window with his hand propping up his head. 

Whatever Zim is feeling, Dib can’t see his face to tell. He focuses on the road, trying to ignore how heavy his eyes feel. He hasn’t slept in, God, what was it, 3 days? It takes them much longer than it should have to get to their destination due to Dib making some wrong turns, but Zim doesn’t seem to mind.

When they finally pull into the Braum’s parking lot, Gir had chewed through his 12th car seat. When the door is opened in front of him, Dib feels a whoosh of wind go by so close to his face and so fast he may as well be on a rollercoaster. Dib closes the door to the now empty car with a blank face and stands there with his key in the door for a beat. 

Everything is fucked, isn’t it?  
His Dad is gone, Zim is ignoring him and he doesn’t know WHY, and he is being pressured on all sides to take over his dad’s empire. He can’t run a scientific empire! He isn’t some savant like his dad. Being able to figure out his equations and pulling apart Foodio when he was 6 didn’t mean anything. 

With his hand still on the key in the door, Dib begins to cry. Fat, wet tears roll down his red face as his body tremors where it stands, but no noise comes out. He barely feels like he’s breathing at all. He bumps his head against the window of the car and leaves it there, letting his sorrow thoroughly wrack through him. He feels a hand on his back that he recognizes to be Zim, but it feels uncertain and cautious in a way they haven’t behaved since high school. Dib finally turns the key and pulls it out of the door, and stashes it in his pocket. The little moth keychain hangs out from his pants, unhidden without his coat to cover it up. 

When Dib turns around, someone looks at him with a concerned expression, magenta eyes just barely visible under the fake contacts if he concentrates. He can’t quite tell what he’s looking at, but past experience would say it’s Zim. Zim adjusts his wig and nudges his head toward the door in a silent question. When Dib wipes his eyes and cleans off his glasses with his shirt, he finally deems himself ready. 

Gir has already destroyed half the restaurant by the time they enter together; glass is broken, ice cream is on the ceiling, and there’s inexplicably about 4 fish on the floor in little paper cups. Gir, however, is sitting happily in a booth by himself with his face buried in some bright blue ice cream that he shouts the name of from across the room. It’s apparently a blueberry-tuna-tapioca surprise. Emphasis on the surprise. 

Dib makes a grimace and scrunches his nose. Yum.  
While the familiar figure chats quietly to the very exasperated employee, Dib walks on auto-pilot to take a seat next to Gir, who now is completely blue from the ice cream. Dib stares down at the table and focuses on counting the speckled dots. 

Is he floating? Where is he right now? Someone is talking to him. Say something, stupid.  
“Yes,” he manages out and the blob in front of him places a hand on his and he feels hair being brushed out of his face. 

The blob is saying something again and he squints his eyes, as if that will help him hear better. 

“Uh.”

The someone moves a cold something into his hands and keeps them wrapped around it, continuing to talk until the words turn from radio static to a string of consonants and vowels he can understand. 

“-re going to be ok. Just listen to me talk. Do you know where you are?”

Dib just stares and nods as the shape starts taking form again.

“Can you tell me?”

Dib stares at the small green hands holding his own around an ice cream cup. “Braums.”

“What is your name?”

“Dib.”

“Spell it backwards.”

Dib’s mouth hangs open; he could do that, three little letters? “B-I-D.”

“Good. Spell your last name.”

Dib repeats the step again, and only starts to struggle when Zim asks him to spell that backwards. One they’ve gone through that, and Zim’s name, and what street he lives on, and the date, and his senses, Dib is aware enough to control his breathing he hadn’t realized was so erratic. 

“Dib?” Zim tries tentatively. 

“Yeah-yeah, I’m here.”

“Are you ok? You have not had an episode in-”

“Years,” he finishes. “And no.” Deep breath in. Deep breath out. “Everyone is looking to me for advice. Everyone is asking for interviews? Some people showed up at the house Zim.” Dib takes a slow bite of his strawberry ice cream. 

“I’m still in school Zim, I’m not-I’m not like Gaz, I didn’t graduate early with honors, I don’t go to a top 10 school.”

Zim fiddles with his spoon, and forgoes ice cream for putting his gloves back on, which Dib is only now realizing he took off to ground him. 

“Can they not ask your sister?”

“NO.” Dib speaks much too loudly. “I’m not going to burden her with this. This is what I was made for, what I was literally born to do. I should be able to do this one thing.”

“Have you asked her?”

Dib purses his lips and looks away, plastic utensil hanging with embarrassment between his thumb and index finger. “I stopped returning her calls when you stopped returning mine.”

Zim feels the dig in his stomach, like he’s back in invader training being crushed by an automaton, being forced to lift it, or die. This was worse. He swallowed back the painful jab and continued forward.

“You can not hurt yourself when I am not there. Where is your phone?”

“Yeah, well, it isn’t much different than getting hurt by you.” He completely ignores the question. 

Zim grits his teeth and steels himself. “Your phone, Dib.” 

Dib digs into his pocket and sets his phone on the table, not once making eye contact with the person sitting across from him. When Zim grips the device in his hand, he quickly unlocks it and locates Gaz’s number, taking note of the amount of missed calls and texts from just the past week. 

It only takes one ring for Gaz to answer.

“Dib! Oh my god you asshole, don’t scare me like that when you said you-”

“It is Zim.” He cut her off curtly. “Are you ok?”

Dib lets his head fall to the table below as he curls over in his seat, hands on his head. Fuck, he hasn’t even asked her if she was ok! How could he have less sense than an alien? He can’t hear what she’s saying but Zim doesn’t seem to be too upset. In fact, Zim continues, unperturbed by Dib’s wallowing.

“Would you mind saying that one more time? I’m going to put you on speaker.” Shit. How long had he been wallowing? Gaz’s disembodied voice makes a heavy sigh and vocalizes though the line. 

“Dib. I am fine. The company is fine. I am running it in the interim while we wait for Dad to show up, and if he doesn’t, I will be made official owner in March of next year. There is nothing for you to do, butthead.”

“Nobody’s called me butthead since the third grade.” He mumbles to the phone, and turns his head when Zim chimes in with a grin. 

“Maybe not to your face.”

Gaz laughs through the speaker and Dib lightly bangs his head on the table and shoves another spoonful of strawberry in his mouth between hits. Of course Gaz has it all together. She’s always been more put together than him. 

“Listen to me,” she crackles through, “I know what you’re thinking, I’ve been there, but you are not only our father’s clone. Me taking over the company has been in the works for years. God sakes Dib, I went to Berkeley.” 

Zim quietly thanks her and says his goodbye before hanging up Dib’s phone and setting it back down. “Do not ever worry alone. If there is anything I have learned in my time here, it is that having someone else with you will poke holes in what your brain believes is infallible.”

Dib moves his arms to prop up his head on the muscles below his elbow. He breathes out silently, finally allowing himself to rest. He’s been so wound up for so long and it wasn’t even necessary. Isn’t he supposed to be finding his dad? And he sulked for a month and felt sorry for himself instead. He focuses his brown eyes on Zim’s hairline, just barely being pushed up by his antennae, which he was clearly struggling not to move underneath his wig. 

“So you admit you were wrong.”

Zim swipes his spoon away in one solid motion and inserts it into his mouth before speaking. “I know that in order to be an effective invader, one must be adaptable.”

For the first time in a while, Dib is able to relax. 

“It’s ok I’m wrong sometimes too, bug-boy.”  
\---

Driving home is largely uneventful, save for the fact that it’s Zim doing the driving instead of Dib. Dib is currently fast asleep in the passenger’s seat, drooling a puddle into the fabric. Every so often Zim glances at him with a soft, unreadable expression on his face. Gir is also asleep in the back seat so he takes the time to appreciate his time on the planet. SIR units don’t sleep, but that never seemed to deter Gir. 

His pak offers up the information that he has been on Earth for exactly 11 years and 14 days. It goes further into increments but Zim isn’t concerned with that. He’s certainly come a long way since the days he was attacking Dib with ANTI PANTS BATTLE LEGS. Once in highschool, he and Dib were watching Megamind and his enemy jokingly made the comparisons between the two of them. Zim places his head on the dashboard, arms crunches between his body and the steering wheel. It was a fond memory. He allows himself to drive them home on autopilot while he fishes the memory out of his banks. 

“Designation: Zim accessing memory banks, Earth Log 54859. Replay loop.”

Whenever he replays memories, they always feel a little grainy, like someone is crumbling sand right next to his ear. If he had ears. He came to terms a while ago that it was likely due to either the involuntary pak re-designation or what he had refused to believe at the time: its malfunctioning due to being defective. It was a sore subject for a long while. 

When the memory loop plays back, he and Dib were lazily sitting on a couch, his hand in a pack of bright candy (that his pak offers up were skittles), and Dib animatedly eating burnt popcorn. 

\--

“Did you know Will Ferrel plays Megamind?”

“Bold of you to assume I keep track of every worthless human that I come across.” You shove a handful of orange skittles into your jaw, having expertly missed all the green ones. You definitely didn’t pick them all out for Dib earlier because they’re his favorite, that would be absurd. 

“He plays the guy in Elf. Alf? Elf. yeah.”

“The Santa movie?”

“Yes.”

“Well, tell Mr. Feral that film was very uninformative, I had to do so much research on what your Santa really is, and it was very confusing.”

“Dude, you could’ve just asked.”

“Ah, yes, hold on while I jump in my time machine and go back to middle school you to ask him who Santa is. I tried that, Dib. You very helpfully sprayed water in my face.”

“Haha, yeah.” He tugs some fabric up to his shoulders and makes a face. "Did you just call him feral?"

"Is that not his name?"

The image goes a bit static as Zim notes that they were sharing Dib’s Mysterious Mysteries blanket, light from the tv the only way to see his illuminated face. He laughs at you and turns back to the movie. 

The reflection from the tv bounces off his glasses and you are poignantly staring at the side of his face while Dib munches happily. You sit in silence, listening to Dib prattle on about how “that’s not how aliens work,” and “so unrealistic.” You’ve since turned your attention back to the screen, but double back at him when he goes uncharacteristically quiet. On screen, Megamind is on a date with Roxanne Richie, and Dib squirms in his seat. 

“What aliens would really make themselves better for love? Don’t you guys not even feel that emotion like humans do? This is so stupid.”

“Right,” you mutter sadly. “So stupid.”  
\---

Zim is shaken out of his memory, quite literally, by a frantic hand on his shoulder. 

“Zim, what the fuck! Don’t zone out now, you drove us into the middle of the woods!”

“Hmm?” Zim supplies helpfully, still coming back from the grayscale memory reel to the saturated greens and browns of the- forest? Why are they in a forest? 

“Dude, how long was I asleep? Where are we? Why were your eyes doing that thing?”

“What thing?” Zim asks, skipping the first two questions. 

Dib waves his hands in front of his glasses. “Like! All muted! They weren’t shiny like usual!”

“I was accessing memory banks a- you were staring into my eyes?”

“You weren’t looking at the road!” Dib sputters. He flails his arms above his head in annoyance, “You were board-still and had no reaction when I hit you in the arm!”

Zim glances down to his arm for a second and rubs it subconsciously. “Well, my map says we are not far from your house. I think this is the woods at the end of the street. I may have overshot the driveway.”

“You overshot the driveway.” Dib repeats flatly.

“May have.”

Dib rolls his eyes and unbuckles his seatbelt, then crawls over Zim and pushes him out of the driver’s side. “Move, I’m driving.”

“You were asleep not moments ago. I only learned how to drive because-”

“Because weak humans die when driving without sleep, yes you’ve said that, but we also die when the driver isn’t paying attention to the road, Zim.” He starts the ignition again before Zim has a chance to argue and turns the pickup around, following the tire tracks out of the brush. Zim pouts the whole way home, tearing off his wig and letting his antenna bounce in irritation. 

Dib sighs next to him. “They’re still here. I thought I told them to leave.” A woman in an ironed-down white suit catches sight of the car and starts power-walking towards it with the determination of an entire army. Her grin is entirely unsettling, especially considering he has to stare down Zim’s inhuman smile every day. 

“Dib Membrane! Your dad is missing and you’ve refused to make any sort of comment on the matter. Is something wrong? What happened to him?” Dib makes a distressed face and his knuckles go white over the wheel. He scoots down in his chair, knee bouncing quickly enough to shake the car. Zim seems pensive while he glances from where he was on the other side of Dib, to the reporter, who has thankfully not noticed his hair; or lack thereof. When Dib starts covering his face with his hands and groans, Zim leaps into action. He first makes sure nobody else is looking at them but the woman reporter, then leans across Dib’s seat and grabs the woman by the collar, pulling her swiftly against the car door and opens his jaw much wider than strictly necessary, and lets his snake-like tongue flit out to its full length in front of her eyes. 

“Leave.” He breathes at the woman. She stumbles back when he lets her go and loses her footing when her heels meet the ground again. Her suit jacket bunches at the back where she’s frantically scooting back to put space between them. The sound is so alarming to Dib, not being on the receiving end of it. He floors the gas and peels out of the way of the house, opting to instead stop at Zim’s base instead. 

Dib only realizes he’s cackling when they reach their destination and Zim pulls the same face at him, but more akin to a cat this time than some monster. 

“Pretty scary, huh?” He says proudly. 

Dib places his forehead on the wheel and glances at Zim out of the corner of his eyes, completely out of breath. 

“I didn’t know you could do that.” His chest feels tight and he can feel his heartbeat in his ears. 

“Have I not done it before? I could have sworn I would have tried to use it to scare you before.” Zim’s eyes glaze over again, finger to his chin and, now that Dib knows the difference, he can tell he’s searching through his memories. 

“God no, I would remember if you did that.” His forehead is still on the wheel and he feels his face begin to burn. 

“Let’s go inside, you dumb cockroach, I need to shower.”

They stepped out of the car and across the grassy yard, Gir cradled in Zim’s arms. When they step through the door, the computer calls out in a booming voice that envelops the whole house. 

“MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM IRKEN ARMADA.”

“Playback.” Zim speaks back blandly. 

The same bellowing, deep voice reverberates again, this time in Irken. Which, yeah ok, Dib thinks, that makes sense, it is a message from Irk. 

Zim goes wide-eyed and his chest stops moving under his sweater. He gives an ear splitting response in a panic. Chirps and clicks coming out more as hums and warbles. Zim starts pacing the living room, having placed Gir on the couch when he entered. He tugs absent-mindedly at the hem of his pink sweater, pulling the cuffs just past his knuckles. 

“Um, Zim?” Dib tries, unfruitfully. Again. “Zim?” 

Zim spins to him with tears coating his enormous, sorrowful eyes. 

“Red is dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for reading!! I have been on a roll lately so I'm sorry I haven't been responding to comments I promise I read them and they are the reason I continue this story.  
> The picture this go around was by withoutathought on tumblr and yall i can not express how much love i have in my heart for this piece im shjdadh.  
> have a beautiful day <3


	6. I'm begging you please don't go

“What do you mean Red is dead? How’d that happen? Aren’t you happy?”

Zim scowls at Dib. “I may have defected, but he was still in my platoon. Red was Zim’s leader and you should respect him as such.”

“Right, respect the guy who ruthlessly bullied you for years and shot one of his own men out into space.”

“Is that not how our dynamic used to work? I would bully you and turn you into meat, and yet here we are. And irkens are not so fragile that the vacuum of space would hurt us. Invader Skoodge is fine.”

Dib sputters with indignation, clearly caught off guard by the answer. He turns his back to Zim and marches toward the bathroom. “Whatever, I’m taking that shower.”

Zim doesn’t respond.

For all intents and purposes, irkens do not bathe, not the way humans do. Zim had figured out quickly that water seemed to have the opposite effect he wanted, in that burning his skin definitely doesn’t make it look better than before. Instead, he has a tub of a kind of yellow jelly downstairs, which when used, is able to physically tear germs off of his skin so he can burn them in the furnace. He still keeps a functioning bathroom for appearance sake though, and it has come in handy more than once just on Dib’s behalf. 

“Are we going on a trip?” Gir asks, now awake and ready to be a menace. 

“Yes, you might want to get Mr. Bouncies. We may be gone for a while.”

“Where are we going?” 

“Irk, Gir.”

“Ooooooh, that’s where I was born!”

Zim’s eyes crinkle and he forces himself to ready for the hours of work he’ll have to do getting the ship running and flying there. “That is right, Gir.”

“That’s where you were born!” 

“That is- that is correct as well.” He bites his lip and runs through a mental checklist. How long will it take to get the ship running?

“That’s where Mary was born?” 

“No, Gir. Dib is human.”

The SIR unit beeps in recognition and waddles over to his stuffed giraffe, which seems to be having a tea party in the kitchen.

“Computer.” Zim calls out, forcing himself not to think about Red, forcing himself not to cry. 

“UGH, WHAT?”

“When the Dib is done, have him sent down to the F level.” 

“FINE.”

Zim presses a pad on the floor with his heel and the couch lifts backwards into the wall. He stands on a raised platform that was hiding underneath and it shoots down below him, plummeting Zim past rows of wires and wall until he reaches the tube he was aiming for and steps out. 

The hangar isn’t somewhere Zim goes often; he doesn’t usually have a reason to. He only has the voot to fly and he keeps that on the landing pad on the roof. No, the hangar is used for more important things; specifically, recently it was being used for a starcraft of Zim’s own design. His gloved hand slides over a couple buttons in the wall, popping out a faded hologram with old, discarded ideas and failed prototypes. Zim looks from the current design to the actual machine that is gathering dust before him. 

Sleek and chrome and huge, Zim’s ship stood before him. By Irken standards, it is not very large, but it is several times the size of his voot, and when needed can house more than one living being in it. Not that he will be flying with anyone besides Gir. Scattered pieces of the hull, boosters, and the entire windshield have yet to be installed, as well as other bits that are less pressing, but just as needed, like a medical bay or sleeping quarters. Which he runs through in his head and justifies that, yes, he definitely needs a sleeping quarters in addition to his meditation deck. Irkens do not sleep, but he definitely needs it. For reasons. Important reasons. 

Zim feels the telltale tingling in his spinal cord that means his spider legs are going to start to help, so when they set their points down on the metal floor, he clicks across the level to the part of the hull that is yet to be attached and sighs. He puts his hands on the cold surface of the outer edge and pushes up, allowing the extra arms to seal the edges into the space shuttle themselves. This continues a couple times until the two boosters are connected and the main engine is secured. Zim sees Dib step out of the chute from the reflection on the chrome siding, lifting his goggles off his head, but staying suspended in the air by his metal limbs. 

“Holy shit, Zim.” Dib mutters in awe, his hand stopping its movement of drying off his hair with the towel around his neck. “Did you build this?” Zim hums non-committedly. “This is incredible.” Dib paces the exterior, trying to see what Zim seems to be taking issue with. 

“It is adequate. Unfortunately Zim will have to get it running much sooner than previously thought.” Dib gives him an inquisitive look and clenches his cowlick in his hands to ring the water out. 

“What for?”

“Are you braindead? Red is gone, Dib. Under Irken law, every able-bodied citizen must attend the Severing Ceremony, and swear their undying allegiance to the new Tallest. Don’t get water on the floor.”

“Wait, you’re leaving?” Dib’s hands still, slick from his shower. 

“I have to.”

Dib breathes out so his words are almost a whisper, throat tight as he stumbles his words out. “But you’re leaving me.”

Zim may not have heard it were it not for his hyper-sensitive hearing. He lowers himself down to the floor and the clacking of his heels against the steel is almost overwhelming in the still silence between them. He reaches around Dib and presses his face into his chest. Dib wraps his arms carefully around him, as if one wrong move could make him leave. 

“I do not have to go alone. Come with me.”

“I-can’t. You were just trying to blow me up two days ago.”

“Fine, do not come then.” Zim backs away with heaviness in his chest. He goes back to working on the ship, and is disappointed, but only a little surprised when he hears Dib go back up the elevator and leave. 

Over the course of several weeks, they fall into an uncertain routine. Sometimes Dib will text Zim about inconsequential things during his work and sometimes he’ll ask questions about irken tech, which Zim will gladly answer. He never texts for a fight. His favorite times are the ones where Dib quietly shuffles into his house and down the elevator to wordlessly help work on the ship. Zim finds himself learning new ways to improve upon the design after it’s already perfected. Reasons to keep him on Earth longer, reasons to keep him with Dib longer. Sometimes Dib will offer up small ideas to work on and they’ll sit together for hours in the hush.  
Dib is over now, handing Zim tools when he asks for them and pointing out things to improve. When Dib speaks up, it knocks Zim out of his concentrative state. 

“I can’t come with you, you know.”

“So you have said.”

“I have to look for my dad.”

“Alright.”

“Red hated you, why are you even going?”

That gets Zim’s attention, but he doesn’t turn to him when he answers. “I told you. I have to.”

“For all those assholes know Zim, you’re dead. You don’t owe them jack shit anymore.”

“You know it is not that simple,” Zim replies. “Would you forgo your father’s death? He was cold and distant and he never trusted you.”

“That’s different. He’s my dad.”

“Is it?” Zim sets down the rod-shaped tool he was holding to look at Dib. “Red was important to me, why can you not understand that?”

“He hurt you, Zim!”

“STOP.” He finally shouts. “I am going and you will not stop me. Now get out of my house before I make you leave myself.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“ZIM DOES NOT MAKE MISTAKES,” he hisses, turning a pained face toward his longtime rival. 

“You admitted that you made mistakes last week!”

“I DID NOT, YOU LIE.”

“Your people hate you, Zim.”

In a second Zim is on top of Dib, knee to his chest and hand on his throat. “You lie.” He croaks out. “Take it back.”  
Dib’s brow furrows and he crams his legs under Zim’s iconic pink uniform. “Make me.”

The two of them rip at each other, punching and scratching and biting to attempt to get the upper hand. Zim pulls out a laser from his pak and starts shooting blindly, too upset to focus and eyes too filled with tears to see. He shoots a hole in the ceiling, the wall, and hits a stray device that was abandoned on the floor. Dib swerves and dodges, jumping behind tables and over obstacles in the hangar before ducking behind the ship they had been working so hard to complete. A beam hits the hull and leaves a smoky indent in its path, before Zim drops the weapon in horror and rushes over to assess the damage. 

“Gir!” He calls, glowering in the direction Dib had gone.

The robot is at his side in an instant, even though Dib is sure he hadn’t been in the room with them before. 

“Escort the stinky human filth out.”

“YES SIR.” He salutes, eyes blinking with an eerie red light. Dib feels his body turn weightless as Gir flies into the back of his coat and into the tube that would bring them to the top floor. 

Zim crumbles into a ball on the ground and lets his sobs wrack his body like an earthquake. Once again, he is alone, tired, and now down one towel. 

\--

When Zim finally hears from Dib again, he’s in the middle of meditation. Storing memories and making updates takes a great deal of energy, and so he stands in the corner connected to a pod, allowing the data to circulate through his wires. With each upgrade he feels more revitalized and less upset, but it never truly goes away. The phone he had been given by Dib all those years ago rings with the Irken Military Anthem and Zim almost doesn’t pick up when the ID shows Dib’s number. 

“I am busy, what do you want?”

“I wanted to apologize.”

“Zim is waiting.”

“I’m sorry, I know your relationship with your home is complicated, mine is too.” The hesitation is so dense it feels like a palpable substance on Zim’s skin, heavy and murky, like treading through a lake of mud. “So,” Dib continues. “I spoke to Gaz.”

“And?” Zim offers impatiently, unhooking himself from the wires and tubes behind him. He shoves the phone in the crook of his shoulder and turns around, dragging the heavy cords with him. Steadily he types some commands into the control panel and the last of the cables disconnects with a hiss and a click. Zim gathers them up in his arms and starts to put them into the wall where they belong when Dib responds again.

“And she said she would take care of everything, but that doesn’t mean-”

“Dib.” He stops him coldly, extremely alert from his pak overhaul and not at all in the mood for this talk. “You have made your position on the matter abundantly clear. You will not be coming to Irk with me, and while I acknowledge your apology, I will rip the eyes out of your skull with you still awake if you tell me no again. Goodbye. Zim will see you in a year.” Zim presses the end call button with Dib still on the other line. When the ringer goes off again, he ignores it, opting instead to shut off the sound and disregard the 17 missed calls and 46 missed messages that pop over the course of an hour. 

While Zim pointedly passes over the myriad of alerts from Dib, he gathers up Gir with only minor difficulty and transfers the computers’ files to the pilot control panel on the ship. This is it. He has to leave now. The ship is ready. He’s ready. There is nothing else to do but leave. So why can’t he leave?

Zim sits in the pilot’s chair, fingers hovering over the controls. It’s so easy. It should be. He just needs to break the atmosphere and engage the Scary Fast drive. He will be at Irk in a couple months if he’s lucky, but his thoughts keep drifting to the cryptid nerd he watched movies with. The human he laughed with and fought with. The human who had once gone to the trouble of catching him a live goose just because he was curious how evil they were. 

It isn’t fair; why does he have to go now? Dib needs him, his father is missing and he had a dissociative episode not too long ago because he could not handle it on his own. Zim’s hands ball into a three-finger fist and his voice shakes. He has to leave before he loses his nerve.  
Zim shouts to the air, letting it reverberate around the hull of the navigation deck. He can see the inside of his hangar from the glass-like substance he had installed as an overhead windshield. 

“Stupid humans and their stupid feelings making Zim feel stupid and gross.” He mutters to himself. He doesn’t understand the feelings he’s experiencing. Something makes his chest turn and he feels sick, which shouldn’t even be possible. Giving into his last-minute impulses, Zim smashes a final goodbye to Dib before he leaves. 

“Zim is Sorry. I will miss you.”

Hardening his demeanor and shaking off the unfamiliar feelings, Zim finally allows the ship he and Dib had built together to take flight. The roar of the engines drowns out his despair and he tears out of the hangar door and into the night sky, rocketing off into orbit. 

Zim hopes with everything he is that he won’t regret his decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapters pic was drawn by vulpineghost on instagram


	7. balooga whales here's the new chappie doo

“Gir, did you hook up the cameras?” Zim turns to his robot companion, turning the ship to autopilot once they’ve gone fast enough to break Earth’s gravitational pull. 

“Mm-HMM.” Gir hums happily, pulling out a box from his chest compartment and handing it to Zim. His antenna twitches as he flips through the screens on the different sides. Six separate images show up on the different surfaces, each projecting a different image in Dib’s home. He flips through them longingly, attempting to catch sight of Dib. 

When Dib is nowhere to be found on the cameras, he places the block down on the small table next to the main control module. Zim allows the ship to glide along through the stars on its own for a bit, choosing to watch as he soars past the planets he has come to be familiar with. When he breaks past Mars, he glances at the holographic map he has up with a downtrodden expression. With each second he is farther and farther away from Dib; and though he had never said it out loud, farther away from his real home. 

“Where’s Mary?” Gir blinked up at him. 

“He is not joining us, Gir. We should get a move on if we want to arrive on Irk early.”

With the knowledge that Dib was not coming with them, Gir lets out a shrill cry for several minutes, never stopping for air, not that he needed it. It’s going to be a very long flight. Zim uses Jupiter’s orbit to swing around quickly and starts his journey outside the Milky Way. He presses a button on the panel in front of him, and the SF drive lifts up and out in a transparent cube. Flipping the glass open, Zim’s hand rests lightly on the candy-cane color of the handle, grappling with the fact that as soon as this is pulled he will not be seeing Dib for a long time. He squints his eyes, unable to watch himself do it, and shoves the handle down. 

Immediately, several things happen at once: Gir stops screaming, intent to ride through the warp like a rollercoaster, Stars pass them by in less than a blink, and a crash is heard in one of the back rooms. Zim whips his head back to allow his sensors to pick up the sound better, placing his palm on the back of the captain’s seat, and standing slowly. 

As the vessel continues to hurtle through the cosmos, the banging gets louder and louder, and a familiar shouting of expletives is audible even through the thick walls. Zim’s face falls with realization and he almost gets whiplash spinning back in his chair to shut off the SF drive.

“Computer. Cruise control: on, stabilizers: on, and for Tallest sake slow down.”

“DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO BUT FINE.”

The spacecraft slows and the room stops shaking long enough for a gangly boy to stumble out of a side room and heave up the contents of his stomach on the floor. 

“What are you DOING here?” Zim shouts, only a little bit, intensely grossed out by human bodily functions. 

“God Zim, give a guy a little warning first before you leave.” Dib lurches a bit and places an unsteady hand on the wall, trying to be as nonchalant as possible with bile on his lip. 

“You are disgusting. Now what are you DOING here?”

The human grins and leans into the wall, then promptly loses his balances and slides down the sheer surface. A pathetic-sounding whine escapes his lungs as he lies on the ground, face squished against the wall and arm bent at an angle between the barrier and his body. He crams his hands under his chest and pushes on the floor, standing to his feet, ignoring the scrutiny of Zim’s squinted eyes. Above Dib, Zim crosses and uncrosses his arms and shifts to the balls of his feet, like he’s considering something very important before acting out.

Dib wipes his mouth with his sleeve. “You didn’t listen to me, Zim. When I called you- I wasn’t-I didn’t-I was trying to tell you-” he keeps stumbling over his words, twirling his hands in the air while he attempts to gather his thoughts. “I was trying to tell you that I wanted to come. Gaz has everything handled, and my dad is probably fine whatever the hell he’s off doing, but a year, Zim? Really?”

Zim buzzes with irritation, the knot in his stomach he didn’t know was being held finally unfurling itself at Dib’s presence. Something in his mind had come crashing down, and suddenly there was no way he could stay upset anymore. Zim purses his lips at the words and glances back to make sure Gir doesn’t overhear him.   
“Do you mean to to tell me, after all the suffering you put me through, after being the most   
Irritating lifeform Zim has ever had the displeasure of meeting, after being so stubborn and difficult for weeks because of your pathetic, disgusting human ideas, NOW you want to come?”\

“Um-yes?”

Dib’s body stalls for a reaction that never came, instead of berating him or kicking him off the ship, something else happens. Two slender, dense arms curl around him and pull him in tight, and his hair is quickly tangled into the two sensors that were shaking on Zim’s head. 

“Zim?”

“I hate you so much, you disgusting Dib.”

“Right, so I guess you’re going to hug me to death now? Is that your plan?” He retorts, ignoring the obvious bruising he’s going to have on his arms tomorrow.

“Shut up. You upset Zim. You should be worshiping the ground at my feet, begging me to accept your forgiveness.”

“I know Zim, and I am sorry.”

If Dib starts to feel a viscous, tear-adjacent substance start to dampen the back of his neck as Zim places his head on his shoulder quietly, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he bows his head and leans into the embrace, closing his eyes and appreciating the warmth that Zim puts off just by being close. He wasn’t aware of how much it mattered until he had almost lost it. Dib closes his eyes and breathes out a shaky breath, then pushes Zim to arms-length to look him in the eyes. Zim’s face is stoic and would be hard to read at the moment if they hadn’t just shared a hug and if Zim’s eyes weren’t slightly pinker than usual around the rims. 

Instantly Dib remembers something he wanted to ask and the corners of his mouth pull upwards. He leans forward and busies himself with untangling his hair before he looks at Zim expectantly with raised brows. 

“Show me the ship.”

The muscles above Zim’s eyes furrow and he tilts his head in silent questioning. “You have seen the ship. You helped build it.”

“Not all of it! There’s a whole second level now! What else did you add?”

The smug look on Zim’s green face fills him with a gross feeling that twists and turns in his gut before settling in, much akin to a cat stretching out before lying in the sun. He chalks it up to residual motion sickness and allows himself to be led about the ship, swinging his arms with excitement and anticipation. 

The first room he’s led into he’s seen before. It was supposed to be some sort of medical area before he stowed away and knocked everything over. 

Instruments are strewn about the floor, the compartments they were in now open and hanging precariously from their spots in the walls from where Dib had knocked into them. A cold, white table hovers in the corner of the room on its side, having been flipped over after Dib’s mid-air somersault and crash from the warp. 

“This is your miniature hospital. You monkeys are so fragile and Zim must be prepared for the inevitable.”

Dib manages to keep the question humming at his throat about why Zim would need a whole room on the ship dedicated to keeping humans alive. He’s also updated on the rooms he did indeed help build. Zim’s personal medical area, the pull-up storage containers that are built into the floor of the main room, the bathroom. Dib is surprised again when Zim steps in front of a double-door and it slides open on its own. The rest of the doors were simple and had locks on them, but this one is automatic and reaches from the floor to ceiling, with a glass barrier acting as the wall between the two rooms. Even without stepping through the steel door, Dib could stand and appreciate the work Zim had put into this room. Fixtures were placed in strategic areas so that it resembles a laser-tag arena. Zim scans something on the wall and Dib can see him select something from a list out of his periphery. The square tiles on the floor, ceiling, and walls shift and focus so that soon it looks just like they’re back on earth, back on the same street they had been fighting each other on for so long. 

“How long did this take, Zim? It’s amazing.”

“Yes, yes, look on in awe at Zim’s greatness, Dib.” 

He watches Zim’s chest puff with pride even as he feigns disinterest. The image fades back to its normal checkered pattern and Zim loops back around to a larger area they had completely passed over before. He hesitates at the entrance and looks anywhere but at Dib, rubbing the back of his neck in silence. 

“This is new.” Dib offers up, filling the heavy silence before the room. 

“Ah, yes, well,” Zims hand hovers above the knob and stills when it connects with the solid surface. “Remember that Zim did not want to leave so early.”

The opening pushes forward and Dib’s eyes are assaulted with pictures of every cryptid he could and couldn’t name. “Is this?” he starts, unable to move. He stays that way for what feels like an eternity before Zim responds.

“This is the Dib’s sleeping room.” Zim’s hands come together in a wringing motion as he seems to decide the floor is the most interesting part of this space, which Dib would beg to differ. Aside from the rectangle in the corner that resembles more of a deep blue mountain of pillows and blankets than an actual bed, the room is everything Dib could want in his own space. Glow in the dark stars are stuck to the ceiling in patterns he recognizes as constellations, and a quick inspection of a nearby desk unearths a variable treasure trove of things for Dib to fiddle with. 

“You stole my cube,” Dib speaks into the air. “I thought that you thought I wasn’t coming.”

“Zim wanted--I wanted something to remember you that you could replace if needed.”

Dib’s eyes crinkled in the way they do when he’s talking Gir through what flavor of ice cream to get that day and he studies the tiny object in his hands, clicking away at the buttons on one of the sides. “Where did you get the others?”

“They are,” Zim bites his lower lip until it blooms a darker green than the top. “A gift.” He shakes his head violently, attempting to escape his own thoughts and pulls at Dib’s hand. “You are focusing on unimportant things, come with Zim.” 

Dib is dragged across the floor, his feet much slower than his mind, which is still on the room behind them as the door snaps shut from the force of Zim closing it. Before he can protest, both of them are shoved into a slim cylindrical tube that closes from the inside. Zim lets go of his hand and it’s at that moment Dib realizes his center of gravity is put off kilt by the lack of gravity around him. Zim doesn’t seem too phased, with his hands clasped firm behind him, back straight and eyes forward. At least, Dib thinks they’re forward. It’s hard to tell with Zim sometimes. Dib’s stomach re-centers itself and his ass hits the floor pathetically. Zim is now definitely looking at him in a way he really doesn’t want to try and describe. Worry? Anger? Annoyance? “Get up, Dib.”

“Yeah, yeah I’m working on it. Maybe make your elevator more person-friendly next time.”

“Perhaps the Dib should learn to not be so sad about gravity. Really, earthlings are the only beings not used to gravity that isn’t their own.”

“Shut up and tell me where we’re going, space boy.”

The door slides open and it feels as if Dib has been unceremoniously launched into the frigid, inky blackness of space. His feet move before he realizes and his palms press on the cold surface with the gentlest of pressure, like it might disappear at any moment. Dib has been in space before, but while trying to destroy Zim, or on the rarer occasion trying to aid Zim, he never got the chance to enjoy it.

Above him and on all sides was the stunning stretch of purples and blues, dotted in with tiny diamonds suspended in the sky, unhidden and completely visible in their beauty without the polluted atmosphere of his home planet. They’re already dangerously close to falling into a planet's pull, because Dib doesn’t even have to look a centimeter to the right to stare in awe at the enormity of it. Fissures crack through the planet’s edge and twist around obsidian masses. Dib whips around to watch Zim with wide eyes, flapping one hand with excitement and bouncing on his toes. Zim rolls his eyes, but the smallest ghost of a smile reveals his true feelings. 

“Are we going down there?”

“Zim was not planning on it. The entire planet is a death trap.”

Dib deflates in the span of half a second and pulls his other hand off the glass. At this, Zim looks very uncomfortable and covers his face with a three-fingered claw. 

“I suppose, if you would like,” he forces out, “Zim would land and see if any damage has to be corrected.”

“But we haven’t taken any damage?” Dib tries, confused. 

“Fine, then Zim will not land! Nevermind!”

“Maybe I’ll throw myself out the airlock and fall to the planet.”

Zim huffs in disbelief and his mouth makes an upset grimace. “You had better not, the surface is 2,500 degrees fahrenheit during the nighttime. Your stupid human body will explode into a fiery ball of pain and death before you hit the ground. Also, the ground is lava.”

Dib makes the entirely incorrect face at the idea of his instant death. He breaks into a sprint and once again topples when the elevator-like machine floats him down. Zim calls before the gravity starts moving Dib down, but it's drowned out by his enthusiasm. The human rushes to the front of the ship and realizes with despair he has no idea what any of the buttons or levers do. 

“Fuck, Dib, shit-” Zim shouts and stumbles in from the other room. Latex lands on his elbow as he stares down the rows of knobs with a sigh and slumps his shoulders.

“Oh.” Zim humms out, finally catching his composure. “Will you look at that?” He pushes a lightswitch-looking panel down and the ship dips closer to the lava-encrusted surface. “We seem to be caught in the gravitational force with no way out. We should land.”

This time, Dib says nothing, but sits down beside Zim in the co-pilot chair that definitely hadn’t been installed by Dib himself.

Zim puts out an indifferent air as he lets the ship work on autopilot in its landing, then leaves Dib alone in the navigation chamber. It only takes a minute of silence before Dib gets bored and gets back up, following the path that Zim took into the other room. 

“What are you doing?” He asks, looking around to observe Zim’s actions while he stands still in the large space. 

“If you die I will not be explaining to your scary sister that it was because you were too stupid to be protected on a place made entirely of magma.”

“You think Gaz is scary?” 

“Dib-thing, if you continue that thought, Zim will let you become a gargantuan charred skull and leave you to rot.” 

Dib’s laughter is interrupted by the weight of large, dense fabric hitting him in the face.

“Put this on.”

“What is it?”

“Truly, your intelligence is a testament to your race.” Zim drones at him. “It is.” Pause. “A suit.” Pause. “For you.” He claps. “Because your pathetic race can not handle heat.”

“Is this yours?”

“No.” Zim glares. “Zim is not so fragile that a little heat will slow me down. I am only bringing my field enhancer to avoid the diamonds.”

“Wait hold on, there’s diamonds?”

“Yes, keep up. It rains diamonds.” 

“It RAINS diamonds?” 

“I will stab you if you do not shut up.” Zim is pulling out a sharp pak leg, but Dib can sense there isn’t any real malice behind it. He rushes to the bathroom to change into his new suit, perplexed at the fact that Zim had a special outfit made and fitted for him. The door closes behind him and Dib holds the suit close to his heart and swallows. Dib slumps down to the ground with his back to the door. A feeling much like a swarm of bees is overtaking his chest and is threatening to tear him from the inside out. Why had they even been fighting if this was the alternative?

“Fuck my dad,” he decides. “He’s fine and I’m going to enjoy myself.” He thumbs over a stitched-in nametag in dark green letting that shows his name, home planet, and some irken word he assumes is also for designation purposes since he doesn’t have his translation guide with him. 

Once Dib is fully dressed and protected, he slams open the door and sees Zim waiting in front of the open bay door, leaning against the wall with a new outfit of his own. Long pant legs and sleeves that go to the elbow start off a maroon jumpsuit with an ovular hole over his chest. Zim is still wearing his gloves and boots, but now has a pouch hanging off his hip in addition to his pak on his back. The whole ensemble is topped with a thin layer of crystal blue almost flush with his face, and his antennae are uncomfortably crammed in the space. 

Dib blinks slowly. "Is that a boob window?"

"Zim does not know what that is and refuses to find out." 

Dib beams at his travel partner, takes a breath, and speaks, throwing his signature trench coat over the custom-made suit. 

“Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you riot for your amazing chapter title  
> and thank you @sweetbabyrayray on tumblr and insta for the picture its so good ill die  
> and once again thank you @vulpineghost on insta, my lovely wife you suffers though my inability to stay in one tense for more than 2 sentences as my editor.


	8. Dib didn't start the fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to personally thank all of you who read and consistently leave comments, this fic would not continue were it not for the love and support I get on it. I have tried to do multi-chapter things in the past but always drop thhem from lack of interest or drive. Thats not the case with this fic and it's largely in thanks to yall. I love you. Happy reading! See you next friday!

Stepping out onto the planet is extremely jarring. The black sky swirls above Dib like the most horrible, deadliest cloud he can think of. Not even a second is he out on the land that he hears tiny clacks on his helmet. Dib looks up and watches with wide eyes and clasped fingers as diamonds shoot down like bullets from the heavens, stinging the parts of his body where his suit is closer to skin. 

“Wow.”

Zim steps out behind him and makes sure the hatch is closed after ordering Gir to watch the ship while he’s gone. 

The waves of lava sway and spill over shallow charcoal land as the two of them explore the area. Even though he can barely see past his nose, in a matter of minutes Dib’s arms are filled to the brim with lava crystal, volcanic shale, and the ever-present copious amounts of tiny diamonds attacking from above. 

“Where _are_ we?” Dib asks, eyes to the sky and arms full of science. 

Zim doesn’t look at him but he still answers very quickly. At first he spits out a series of chirps and chitters, “-- but of course, your kind designate it as 55 Cancri E, or ‘Janssen’.”

“How have I never seen this place before?”

He rolls his eyes with a bemused smile on his face. “It is nowhere near earth, human idiot. From your perspective, this planet is around what you call the cancer constellation and -- where are you going?”

Dib has decidedly fucked right off. He stands far too close to a pool of lava for Zim’s comfort. He sits wide-eyed and one covered hand inches toward the heat.

_“NO.”_ Zim is holding him back in a flash, arms wrapping around his sides and pak extensions shooting into the hard surface of the planet to put distance between Dib and the lake. Dib looks up at Zim and down at his hand. It erupts in blues and gold and every so often flickers with life.

He’s on fire. 

“Toasty.” 

“Are you an _IDIOT?_ ” Zim screams, not letting go of him for a moment. Dib practically flies through the air as Zim bolts for the ship. “This is exactly why I told you not to come down here. You humans are fools and I hate all of you.” Dib squirms in Zim’s arms, hand still very much ablaze as he attempts to break free. 

“We just got here, Zim! I’m not leaving yet!”

Zim gives him a look that shuts him up right away. “You came out here and immediately stuck your hand into something that would kill you if not for Zim’s genius invention. Be thankful I let you come down here at all.”

“But I left my rocks! When is the next time I’m going to have the chance?”

“Your obsession with those boring rocks can wait. You are dying and because of your foolishness, if I do not fix the suit soon, _you will suffocate_.”

Dib stares at the very fast-moving ground with a frown. He speaks again when his eyebrows have been furrowed long enough that his face is beginning to hurt under his mask. 

“I liked those boring rocks.”

Zim is too busy dragging him up the ramp of the open hatch to respond, but the moment they’re both inside the alien is tearing off Dib’s scorched coat. He then peels off his suit with as much speed as a frantic irken can muster, which is apparently quite a bit. A small laser cuts through the burnt sleeve of his coat and metal encases the embers to snuff out the fire.

“My coat!” Dib tries to swat Zim’s hands away with little success, but is soon stripped down to his t-shirt and boxers and thrown onto a floating medical table haphazardly. It bows under Dib’s weight for only a moment before righting itself again.

“Hey!”

“Cease making words. Zim would not need to resort to this if you were not a complete and utter disgrace to evolution.”

Metal limbs are poking and prodding at Dib while Zim stands over him, holding his arm up to his eyes and scanning carefully. Zim sighs and he visibly relaxes. He puts down Dib’s unhurt arm and turns his eyes away to where he can see Gir through the open door of the medical bay. Gir now has a slurpee. Zim is not sure how that’s possible so far from home but if it keeps him busy, that's fine. 

Zim turns back around, needle in hand. He quickly pulls some liquid from Dib’s arm and taps the glass, then sets it aside in a tube. “What were you thinking, you imbecile?” He croaks out, exhausted.

“I was fine! The suit was keeping me safe!”

Zim staggers out a breath and paces with one hand on his head. He stops a foot on the ground and makes a noise under his breath while pulling an antenna.

“Zim is not infallible!” His voice raises as his hands clench below him. Zim's fists soften their grip on themselves when Dib can see a couple drops of bright pink blood dot from his palms. His voice softens and the pain that's evident in his eyes isn’t something Dib is used to. 

“Zim is- I am not perfect. I am able to leave without a full-body suit because of what I am. Irkens are meant for conquest, Dib. Extreme heat or cold is nothing. Losing a limb is just another Tuesday. You could have died. Do not scare Zim like that again or I will be forced to make the detour back to your disgusting planet.”

Dib purses his lip and swallows, avoiding eye contact. “I’m fine though, aren’t I?”

Zim practically screams at him in response. “That is not the point!” Two alien palms cover bagged eyes. 

Dib rolls his eyes and leans back on his hands. “Why do you even care? I thought you won if I died.” 

Zim stills and his voice levels in a clear instance of complete control. “It is time for bed, human.”

“Isn’t it only 4 on earth?”

“ _Now_ , Dib.”

Not wanting to cause any more trouble, Dib lowers himself off the exam table and leaves Zim behind in the room, watching as he slumps down the wall out of the corner of his eye. A choked sob is the last thing he hears before the door to his room shuts behind him, leaving him feeling extremely moronic and more than a little guilty. 

\---

Zim is still hunched on the floor when Gir sits by him. A tiny metal hand offers him some very-much-melted slushy and he takes it, giving Gir a pat on the head. ”Guess the prototype was not ready, huh Gir?” 

Gir stares blankly at him, then yells when Zim takes a sip of the offered beverage. “It’s cherry!”

“Yes Gir, It is very good.” He pauses and tries to untangle the mess of emotions in his gut. God, he really has gone native, hasn’t he? Disgusting. Zim shakes his head and stands quickly, Gir dangling limply off his shoulder like some sort of shiny handbag. 

“Would you like to help your master design a new suit?”

“YEAH!” 

“Thank you, Gir.”

Zim puts himself back together and heads to the second floor. In addition to the viewing deck, it also serves as a meditation center for when he grows lethargic and a small work area. In the corner where the ship tapers into a tail, rolls of fabrics and tools pop out of the wall. A flat, clear surface slips out of the adjacent panels with little difficulty, offering itself as a desk... Zim sighs. Maybe if the Dib knew exactly how hard he had worked to get everything ready. Maybe if he had known he was going to invite him to space even if his tallest did not die. Maybe if he just- knew. Maybe Dib would not be so reckless. 

Nevertheless, in the home he built for himself with his lifelong companion playing with a wrench beside him, Zim got to work. 

Putting together the new suit for Dib would be no easy feat. The first time he had to pretend to get into fights in order to take the measurements he had needed, and had accidentally stabbed Dib in the process. At least this time he has all the numbers he needs to accomplish the task. 

How do you protect a being that believes they are as nigh- unkillable as an Irken? Zim’s antennae lay flat in thought as he scribbles down numbers and plans in his head. He realizes very quickly however that he doesn’t like any of them; not for lack of genius, Zim has plenty of that, but something else. 

Something just isn't right. 

He absent-mindedly colors in the sides of the drawing - Dib’s shirt - and it clicks. 

He doesn’t just need something to protect him. He needs his coat. Dib can’t just _not_ have a coat, he’s had that stupid thing since- well, ever since Zim first met him. 

He furiously scrawls one last design, jacket first. When he decides he’s happy with it, he transfers the plan to a large screen that takes up the wall, much akin to the display he has at home.

He dyes the fabric and hems the sleeves and gives it a special material that would kick in should Dib decide he’s fine without a heart beat and tries to set himself on fire again. 

Idiot.  
He starts at the seams, hemming and needling, and pricks his bare fingers more times than he cares to count. Fabric is laid out, lines are cut, and pockets are sewn in. Every so often Gir hands him something that he asks for, and Zim pain-stakingly connects button-like devices into the lapel of the deep blue coat. 

A few hours later, Zim is done. Pleased with his work, he stashes it in the extra room behind his work desk. 

“Gir, do not let Dib escape his sleepy room.”

“Why?”

“Because if you keep him in, I will get you a snack the next time we land.”

“What kind of snack?”

“Whatever kind you want, Gir.” Zim crouches down to Gir’s level and presses at the place his nose would be if he had one. “Now be a good Sir and protect Dib for me, ok?”

“Yes, sir!” Gir waddles to the elevator and falls on his face, laughing when the gravity field pulls him to the first floor with ease. 

“Ok Dib, time to get your stupid rocks.”

Zim follows Gir out shortly, but instead of standing at the human’s door, he opts to exit the ship again. 

He realizes very fast that it must now be daytime, because his internal sensor tells him easily it's well above 4000 degrees Fahrenheit when it had been about 2500 earlier. 

Really, the things he does for that idiot without thanks. The sun is far too close for comfort and clearly close to its death. Zim fights the heat in his bones, even as he knows that any normal Irken would be able to handle it with little issue. But he isn’t a normal Irken; he knows that now. He’s really known for a while, he- 

No, he isn’t going down that train of thought. 

Get the rocks and go. 

\---

Dib was sulking. It had been well over an hour and Gir was still guarding the door. Well, “guarding” may have been generous, but still, whenever Dib tried to step out of his starry-walled prison, Gir turned his head 180 degrees and stared into his soul. He hasn’t been that creeped out since he found out Minimoose could read his thoughts. 

So he sulks. He sits at the oak table Zim picked out for him with the fidget cube Zim had taken from him and the fake stars Zim had painstakingly sorted into constellations on the wall. 

Goddammit. 

Dib leans back in his chair and looks toward the ceiling. He looks at the sad, destroyed remains of his signature trench coat on the floor. He looks at the mountain of pillows in his favorite color in the corner. 

He’d really been an asshole, huh? 

He pushes until the divider is open and a chill runs down his spine as Gir once again rotates his entire head around to bore mechanical eyes into his human soul. He’s eating raw cookie dough. 

Oh, there’s an idea. 

“Gir, can I have some of that?”

Gir’s entire body swings around and he goes into defense mode. Dib has literally never seen him do that. Ok, try again. “I want to make something nice for him. Since he’s done so much for me. You can have some too, I promise.”

Gir squints his eyes, still ready to attack at a moment's notice. “Pinky promise?”

“Yes, pinky promise.”

“You won’t break it? I get to have cookies?”

“Have I ever broken a pinky promise, Gir?”

This seems to placate Zim’s unit as he spits the half-eaten, fully-wrapped tube of cookie dough out by the top of his head. Somehow it was slimy. “Right. Thank you, Gir. Does Zim have an oven on this ship?”

“I DUNNO.”

“Figures.” Dib takes the (spit? Could robots produce spit?) spit-covered confectionary starter and decides to take a look on the second floor. He’s seen every other room on the ship, so if there was a kitsch, it would be up there. 

It is not up there.

What IS up there, Dib is touched to find, is a brand-new outfit, paired with instructions and diagrams and-- a coat! His coat! Except it was shorter and blue. Hmm. Dib wastes no time in shimmying on the new skintight blue jumpsuit and sliding over long pocketed pants to go with it. He studies the last piece with a tiny, weak grin. 

He needs to thank Zim. Really thank him. 

Dib places that on as well and scans over the instructions quickly. Yeah, this should keep him safe on the surface. 

Now then, if you bake cookies on 300 for 20 minutes-- _whatever_ , he decides. He’ll eyeball it.  
\--

Zim pockets the small pile of mixed stones Dib had amassed earlier. They had been dropped next to that accursed lava fissure when he dragged him back to the ship. As Zim carefully places the stones in the pouch on his hip, he examines one in a ‘V’ shape. From the right angle it looks like Dib’s stupid hair flip. Zim’s eyes crinkle and a ghost of a grin is tentatively granted access on his lips. 

Still burning up and covered in sweat, Zim begins the trek back. 

When he turns a corner around a hill that he’d landed the ship behind, the first thing he sees is chaos. 

Dib seems to be, for the second time that day, on fire. 

“What are you doing?!”

Dib’s head whips around and Zim can see his teeth through the widest smile he’s ever seen on him. 

“Zim!”

“Get back inside! It is not safe for--” Zim pauses and takes a closer look. Upon closer inspection, Dib is not, in fact, on fire. The Human is holding out Zim’s sir unit by his arms, and some kind of smoking circles are very much burning on Gir’s head, but thankfully, Dib is fine. 

He’s also--

_“What are you wearing.”_ Zim asks, brows lowering and the worry he had before being replaced with betrayal.

“I found the suit you made! It’s so cool!” He pauses and puts Gir on the ground, then picks up a flaming rock and runs toward Zim. “Look! I’m fine! I’m not on fire!”

Zim purses his lips, biting the underside of the top with a careful expression. He slowly works out the words he wants as he takes the object Dib is trying to give him in his hands. 

“So what Zim is to understand, is that you not only disobeyed me, you searched through my things, found an experimental prototype that has not been tested, and put yourself in danger _again._ ”

“Wait, no--”

“Is that or is that not what has happened?”

“Zim, listen--”

“ _No._ No, you will listen to Zim. Just today you have put yourself in harm’s way three separate times, and twice could have been avoidable if you had spoken to Zim!” Zim deflates a bit and holds the burning char in one free hand, opting to take Dib by the other and lead him back into the ship, Gir trailing close behind. He no longer has smoking remnants of whatever it was that was on his head. So Zim assumes it must have been either eaten, or finally burned away to nothing. 

Gir chews on something and spits it out with a sad face. 

Ok, eaten then. 

When they are back inside the safety of the indoors, Zim looks at Dib in the eyes. 

“Do not do that again. If my creation did not function, you would be dead. What were you even doing outside?”

“Dib’s eyes cast down to the glossy floor as he makes his way to the cockpit. He slumps in the co-pilot chair after helping Gir buckle into his own booster seat and mutters incoherently. 

“Zim cannot hear you when you mumble.” Zim in fact could hear him, through a hyper-sensitive antenna, but is not about to let Dib get around explaining himself. 

“I wanted to make you something nice. I- I realize I’ve been nothing but a bother today and I scared you, and I just wanted you to know I appreciate, y’know, not letting me die.”

Zim mulls over the answer and considers the char in his hands. 

“So, thank you, and I’m sorry.” Dib finishes, slouching in his chair. 

“What is it?”

Dib is hard-pressed to be upset after that, and starts laughing. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad isn’t it? I tried making some cookies for you, since I know how much Irkens like sweet things.”

“I am not ingesting a charcoal briquette.”

“No, no, I don’t suppose you would.”

Zim gives the burnt cookie to the trash chute, which hurtles it out into the fiery atmosphere of the planet, ending its sorry existence. He slides into the captain’s seat and pulls on the level to lift them up and out of the sky. 

He chuckles. Maybe the next place will be better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This time the illustrious Readglare on instagram drew the chapter picture, and as always, my loving and adoring wife Vulpineghost on insta slaved through the disaster of commas that was my fic in their editing.


	9. The Boys Do a Panic Attack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is two weeks and some odd days late but seasonal depression has been kicking my ass so appreciate the patience. There will not be an update this friday, but i will attempt to get another out by 12/4. I can't promise that will happen but I really enjoy writing this fic and it makes me happy.  
> Till next time, drink water, take your meds, and please sleep at a reasonable hour.

As it turns out, living with an alien is weird. 

Since they’d left Janssen, Dib has caught Zim, on more than one occasion, just sitting in the middle of the upstairs floor. Zim claims he’s clearing his head, but it doesn’t seem quite right. He’s not as alert as usual, and Dib has startled Zim during what he assumes to be meditation several times now. 

Zim has always claimed in the past that irkens are a flawless species, militaristic and strong, never wavering, never faltering, ready to jump and kill at a moment's notice for their Tallest. 

Except, that isn’t exactly the case. Not for Zim. 

Dib jots down notes in the pocket journal he always has with him. He’d unfortunately left his main one on Earth in the hurry, but it was basically full anyway. He hums to himself in the privacy of the room that Zim built for him, pushing back his wild, untamed cowlick just for it to bounce back again. 

“There’s something he’s not telling me, there has to be.” Dib muses and pokes a red pen at a messy list on the page. 

  1. Meditation?? - About once or twice a week, Zim will sit by himself when he thinks I’m asleep. Minimoose and Gir are not allowed to join. Possible reasoning: Tired/Annoyed/Just for fun
  2. Chirping noises during meditation, Possible reasoning: ???
  3. Zim has his own room on the ship. Heavily Guarded. He will not allow me to enter. Weapons? Secret irken data? Domination schemes?



Dib scribbles at the words in frustration, putting his head to the desk. It’s not likely ANY of this is right. Zim has certainly changed in the last several years; he didn’t just chuck Dib into outer space at the first chance. He built two separate outfits to try and keep Dib safe. He watches movies with him. 

Dib turns his head to the side, resting on his cheek. Since they’d left, Zim had just dumped a pile of rocks at his door one day and left. When Dib had approached him about it, he feigned ignorance and told him, “Go away, I'm driving.”

At present, the rocks are sitting pretty in a glass cylinder. Little diamonds pepper throughout the lava rocks Dib had picked out previously. The difference was very satisfying to look at. Almost as nice as the starry sky just outside the speeding spacecraft.

_ No _ , he thinks,  _ Zim really isn’t that bad anymore.  _

He supposes he was just having a hard time accepting that after highschool, but Zim has, in fact, changed. 

After all, he is fine, his sister is fine, and Gir (who is no longer being berated every other breath) is fine. If Zim wanted to threaten him or his family, he could have done so long ago. Dib could see in the way that he purposefully and carefully danced around him instead of killing him, in the way he softened around Gir in his recent years, despite being a nuisance. He doesn’t destroy, massacre, or kill. 

Many things Zim has said in the past were at the core of being irken. 

At the core of being Zim.

But, Dib has never met anyone like Zim. He has met Tak, yes, and the consciousness she had programmed into her ship, but the more Dib stares at the space rocks, the more he realizes that  _ nobody else like Zim _ isn’t just in the irken sense. 

He’s never met anyone like him. Period. Irken or otherwise. 

Dib is unable to shake away some memories that bubble to the surface. Copying each other’s homework in highschool, getting in trouble for copying each other's homework in highschool, sitting under the bleachers during football games and making fun of people.

Homecoming. 

No. Not homecoming. 

He refuses to think about that. He refuses to think about Zim showing up to his house an hour too early in a bright pink tux too formal for a school dance and too loose to look formal at all. He refuses to think about how much fun they had after they’d decided to go as friends and spike the punch with some dubious iron liquid that made everyone talk backwards. He refuses to think about how if he looked long enough, even in the dim light of the badly-decorated cafeteria, he could see the pinks of Zim’s eyes under his contacts. 

He doesn’t think about how he had wanted to have that much fun without Zim having to hide himself. 

Because he doesn’t want to think about what that meant. 

So he doesn’t. 

Instead of thinking about any of that, Dib thinks about other things. All the things that make Zim absolutely infuriating to hang out with. 

How Zim tries to look intimidating when he wants to be right by standing on his pak legs. How Zim’s voice raises an octave when he’s chewing him out. How after middle school Zim had gotten so fed up with being short he physically altered his height to match Dib’s growth spurts. 

How sometimes when he’s working on intricate details he refuses to wear his gloves and shows his smooth, slim hands like some sort of taunt on Dib specifically. Stupid Zim and his stupid alien hands that look stupidly soft and--

_ No. Absolutely not. Not again.  _

Dib stands to his feet faster than he’s done in his life. He can’t subject himself to those thoughts again. 

Clearly he needs to busy himself. 

Dib leaves the rock-gift in its tube on the desk and heads out. One of the things he and Zim had the chance to build together before the ship was finished was the sparring deck, so Dib is well-acquainted with most of its abilities. When the doors slide open, Zim is already working out some frustration of his own. The alien leaps off a wall and swipes a metal rod through a hologram of some lifeform Dib’s never seen before. It fizzles out of existence and Zim takes the rod in his mouth in favor of using his hands to grab the bar above him and flip to a higher level to take out two more indiscernible alien figures. 

Dib’s heart pounds in his throat as he stands still, watching the events unfold as Zim fights to work without his pak against the holographic barrage of enemies. Zim’s chest heaves up and down as he wings himself back down to the first level to chop through another enemy, inches away from Dib’s nose. 

“Um, heyyyyy.” Dib waves slowly, eyes darting to the side of the room, avoiding the heavily-breathing irken before him. 

“Dib?” Zim softens his stance and shuts down the simulation, letting the Earth-terrain give back to the flats of whites and grays. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“I-uh, yes. What’re you doing?”

Zim looks around before giving an answer. “Training. I may have to return to Irk, but it is a dangerous place, and you have made me--”

“Soft?”

_ “Rusty. Dib.” _ He grits out. Green overtakes his features and he turns his back to Dib. 

“If you insist on putting yourself in harm’s way, Zim must be prepared for the inevitable.”

Dib’s brows furrow and his eyes squint. He looks at the creases on the floor of the arena while he’s putting together what the insult was supposed to be.    
  
“I am saying you are stupid and reckless and would die without the grace of the mighty Zim.” 

At that, Dib’s face contorts and scrunches up, and the warm feeling he was feeling in his chest was replaced with flustered indignation. “Hey! I beat you for years, didn’t I? I could totally handle myself on Irk.”

Zim turns his head very slowly, lips pursed and eyes barely open. 

Something catches very quickly in Dib’s throat. 

“Zim is not like the armada. On Irk I will be among millions of others of Zim kind. Half or more will be trained to kill on sight. The Severing Ceremony is not some silly holiday like your fragile earthlings have. Any outsider that may prove any threat to the new Tallest will not survive. Numbers alone would kill you.”

He wavers, shifting his balance from one foot to another in consideration and speaks again. 

“This is...this is Zim’s fault. Tallest are not as indestructible as they once seemed. You will stay on the ship."

The clenching of Dib’s jaw is what tells him he’s gritting his teeth, and for a moment he hears his heart beat in his ears. For a brief, horrible moment he’s reminded that Zim was dangerous, he was seen as a threat and a weapon, and his time on Earth made him an outlier. The silence is deafening when Dib raises his question to the air, asking for it to be received. 

“What do you mean your fault?”

Zim’s head rapidly snaps back to face away from Dib and he coughs, enunciating his words with more volume than is strictly necessary. He does not answer the query, and instead shoves the cold metal rod into Dib’s open hands. The weight and crisp feeling of it distracts Dib long enough from his questions, and Zim is programming the panel on the wall within moments. 

“When you can beat Zim on irken turf, you can accompany me on-planet.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Zim does not make false guarantees.”

In an instant, the room is swept with a myriad of pinks. Muted and vibrant, saturated and grey. The small obstacles that had been placed about seem to erupt into towering behemoths of metal and steel. The entire arena tints as the fake sky turns red and the faces of two tall, disapproving leaders appear on the walls. 

Zim breaks into a sprint at Dib and in the span of a second, he flips Dib onto his chest and pins him to the floor, knocking the rod out of his grasp. 

“Irken Invaders will not show mercy. They will not care if you are unarmed.”

“No fair! I wasn’t ready!” Dib cries, struggling under the density of Zim’s body. 

“You will never be ready.” Zim pulls out all of his legs at once and positions them at lightning speed in front of Dib’s eyes and at the base of his neck. If Dib wasn’t careful, he would die right then and there. 

His eyes haven’t adjusted to the colors, like walking into a bright room after hours in the dark. He can’t see, and a rhythmic thrumming is all that goes through his ears when he tries to assess his surroundings. 

“Break free right now. If you are sure you will survive, break free now.”

Dib wiggles under him some more and he attempts to deduce what the place is. He needs clues, something. Zim knows this place better than he does, but there has to be something. He observes the makeshift towers around him and realizes he’s laying on a flat surface. 

Okay. Good start.    
  
Around the ring he’s on stand 4 other pillars of varying height, each with pairs of translucent irkens staring down at him. A wall of jeering brings his attention to rows and rows of what he assumes are spectators, programmed in to represent-- what exactly?

Approval? Vindication?

Fear?

Zim doesn’t seem phased by the sudden change of scenery, but Dib tries anyway. There was a reason he chose here, There was a reason he, Dib Membrane, had survived ten years with the alien menace.  _ Use your brain, Dib! _

Zim growls in his ear and presses a knee sharply into his back.  
  
  
“You have 3 seconds to escape. Others will not be so generous.”

_ There has to be something, there was always something.  
  
_

“One.”  
  


_Something that could distract Zim for long enough for him to get up._  
  


“Two.” Zim’s grip falters and there’s a moment where, if Dib wasn’t busy thinking, he could have pushed him off. 

The taunting from the hologram onlookers seem too biting, too much like--  
  


_Like this was a memory._

_ Bingo.  _

“Why are all these people watching you, Zim?”

Zim stops dead, eyes boring into the lifeless images of the irken wall before them. The wall stares back. 

“They are not, you are imagining things.”

“Where are we?”

Zim flips Dib over fast enough to crack a rib if he wanted to, and is bent over him angrily, an inch away from his face.

Dib’s eyes widen as he’s met with sharp, angry teeth and wide, glassy magenta eyes. 

“Do not ask questions you are not ready for the answer to.  _ Dib. _ ” His name is spat out with enough vitriol that a knot clenches in Dib’s gut again. He feels sick, but not from fear. He poked the bull. Whatever happened was not a pleasant experience for Zim, and he didn’t have the foresight to acknowledge that. Zim lifts off Dib and the pak legs retreat into the open ports on his back. 

“Wait, I’m sorry.”

“Not every irken will be defeated with words.” Zim’s feet move back to where the panel juts out from the wall, forged foes taunting his every move. His feet barely lift from the floor, much different from his usual confident stride, and Dib feels like shit.

“Zim will teach you to properly fight.”

“No, I mean it, I--”

Zim cuts him off and the pinks fade back. The sky becomes clear and the jeering stops. 

“Meet me here tomorrow. I will start with the basics before we reach  Xenuelibria.” Zim breathes out heavily, and his chest heaves with labored breaths. Did a small fight with Dib really wear him out that much?

“Are we close to a new planet?! What’s it like? Is the air breathable? Is-” Dib sputters off questions rapid-fire, oblivious to the plight of his companion. 

Zim huffs out a labored response. “Cease the incessant gibbering.” His chest feels warm and the clicking noise resonates in his head and gets louder when he slumps to the ground. The clicking grows louder and his inhales grow shallower. 

By the time Dib notices what’s happening, Zim is huddled on the floor, vision blurring into familiar greys and blues of the person before him.    
  
“Zim?” Dib voice croaks as he bends down to place a hand on Zim’s back. His hand connects with the machinery on his back and he pulls back fast enough to hear a popping noise in his elbow. 

“Jesus, Zim, you’re burning up. What’s going on?”   
  
Zim writhes and flips himself over, forcing his pak away from Dib’s worried hands. “Nothing. Zim will be fine.” He pushes himself up, attempting to bring himself into a sitting position, and the world spins. 

He grows weightless and barely registers being lifted up. The air around him is stifling. They’ve been off planet for about a day now, but he feels as if he were right back on that stupid rock, face inches away from lava while he watches Dib catch on fire. 

This time though, he feels as if he’s the one on fire.

It’s a very good thing, he thinks, that irkens do not need to breathe. 

And his chest slows to a stop. 

\--

Dib may or may not be panicking. The only thing that told him Zim was still alive was that his body had not grown cold yet, but his eyes were glassy and his back was losing its light. He also wasn’t breathing, and Dib was  _ pretty sure _ he needed air to live. 

When he lifts Zim into his arms, he struggles with the unfortunate factors that:

  1. Zim is much taller than he used to be. 
  2. Zim is extremely dense for a lithe body, and thus, extremely difficult to carry.



Still Dib persists, and he makes his way to the bedroom Zim had set up for him. 

The door almost slams open with the force Dib kicks it open, and his body is moving on its own. He carries Zim right past the open notebook on his desk and lays him on the pile of pillows that made up his bed. Dib rolls him onto his front, making sure his face is on it’s side so he can take in air when he wakes up. 

Dib bites his lip and he tastes the coppery liquid of his blood on his tongue. 

_ If _ he wakes up. 

_ “Shit.”  _ he mutters, pacing a circle into the floor. “Shit shit shit shit  _ shit. _ ”

One of Dib’s hands meets the back of his neck and he scratches red lines into the skin with his nails. This has never happened before, what is he supposed to do? Is this his fault somehow? He calls out for maybe the only being here who might know anything. It’s a real long shot.

He’s so unsure of himself, he doesn’t want to leave Zim alone in this state. His pak is still hot to the touch and Dib feels like he’s getting far too close to a hot stove for this to be safe. Zim sure doesn’t seem to be safe right now. 

“Gir?” 

Almost as if speaking him into existence, Gir totters in. He’s almost through the 4th syllable in his very long ‘yes’ before he shrieks. 

“DADDY!” Flames escape Gir’s feet in his effort to reach Zim on the other side of the room as quickly as possible.    
  
_ Ok. _ Dib thinks.  _ As cute as that is, what do you do now? _

“Gir, what do we do?”

It occurs to Dib when Gir erupts in rancorous open-mouth bawling that Gir may not actually be very helpful.  _ Think Membrane, what did Gaz do when he was sick?  _ Dib snaps and leaves the grief-stricken robot alone while he rushes to get some rags. 

He steps on some pressure levers on the floor Zim had shown him that released the storage compartments. Four separate plates hiss out of the ground with different supplies. Food, weapons, clothes, Minimoose-- Dib makes eye contact with the purple moose in confusion and presses the switch again, choosing to ignore the soft “nya” that was happily peeped. The storage closes itself back into the floor with a click. Dib will unpack that bit later. 

_ Breath, Dib _ . He panics, not breathing.  _ You aren’t any help to him if you panic now. _ Where would medical supplies be?

**THE MEDBAY, BOY.**

_ Hahaha, don’t think about the weird moose speaking in your head. _

**I CAN NOT HELP IF YOU DO NOT RELEASE ME FROM MY DARK PRISON.**

_ MMM, fine.  _ The same switch is pressed a third time, and this time when Zim’s minion appears, he floats out and levitates himself to Zim’s side through the open door of Dib’s room.

So much for privacy. 

Dib slams into the clear door of the exam room, knocking himself over before it helpfully slides open a second later. He scrambles to his feet and reaches the compartments lining the walls. Boxes fly out of their places as he pulls them open with a little more force than strictly necessary. He fists some sort of yellow rag that feels wet to the touch, despite never being placed in water. When he finds his prize, Dib swivels on the balls of his feet and starts back to where Zim’s body was likely starting to go cold. He skids back by the storage full of candy that is still open and snatches two packs of pumpkin-shaped candy corn. 

When Dib reaches the edge of the open door, he deflates. All the energy is sucked out of his body in a moment and he slumps to the floor, placing a hand gently on his chest. 

Zim is fine. 

More than fine. If anything, it seems like nothing had happened at all. 

  
Zim is sitting up now, chatting animatedly with Minimoose as if he hadn’t just passed out on the floor moments ago, head swerving back and forth to say something to the weapon and back to a distressed Gir, petting his metal head with an unarmored hand. He shushes Gir quietly and picks him up into his lap.    
  
Dib grabs the weapon of mass destruction with as much wild energy as could break free of his body at once, and tosses him across the room like an exasperated basketball. 

**UNHAND ME, SIMPLETON.**

Dib doesn’t even have to listen to the booming voice in his head to free Minimoose from his grasp. The force he puts behind his throw floats Minimoose to the wall much slower than something that was thrown at a high velocity should. He bounces unceremoniously against a crackled wall and spins slowly onto his back in midair.

The tower of pillows sinks under Dib’s weight and Zim’s spine goes still as familiar arms go into an unfamiliar position around his body, trapping him in place. 

“Unhand Zim.”

“Fuck you spaceboy, let me have this.” Dib digs his face into the crook of Zim’s neck and the hand that was petting Gir moves to run through the human’s hair instead. 

“Zim is okay. I promise.” The hug tightens and Zim huffs in discomfort, pressing the drooping cowlick to the flat of Dib’s skull. 

“How on Earth was that ‘okay’?”

“We are not on Earth.”

“And you’re clearly not okay!”

“Zim knows how to handle the spells.”

The feeling of Dib’s slender frame going still as he slowly pushes his body away, eyes wide and mouth in a flat line, is what informs him that he has said something wrong. 

“What does that mean.”

“You threw Minimoose, he could have been hurt.”

“He’s always fine, don’t dodge the question.”

“How many times have you thrown my moose, Dib?”

“Don’t dodge the question,  _ Zim. _ ” Dib spits out his retort and shakes Zim lightly, noting he is no longer hot to the touch, but his hands still tingle and Zim is still far too warm for his liking. Zim’s hand stops moving on Dib’s head and his eyes go to the moose-shaped balloon floating through the air. 

He would sweat if he could. 

“Zim!” Dib’s voice raises an octave and his hands clench around Zim’s shoulders. “Please.” His voice goes barely above a whisper and he drops his hands to Zim’s uncovered ones and clasps them together. The alien goes rigid, not expecting the gesture. He’s suddenly very grateful he’s already green so that the soft darker color that brushes his nose bridge and cheeks is nigh-undetectable.    
  
“It-- is complicated.” Zim’s solid frame pushes Dib’s body off with ease, and he swings his legs off the bed. 

His antennae twitch downward as he glances at Gir, then at the open door. 

“Come with me.”

It takes a moment for Dib to be able to breathe evenly again, but when Zim’s hands slip out of his own he’s back in the moment, rising to his feet and following him into the adjacent room. 

Zim leads him in, hesitating at the door before he puts in a pin, covering the numbers with his hand. The first thing Dib sees is wires. So many wires. Literally ceiling to floor of wires of varying color, length, and width. The largest of them is grey and attached to a cylindrical tube. Zim picks up about a dozen red wires and glances behind him at Dib’s face, trying to gauge a reaction. 

“I have been--neglect-” He pauses. “In my maintenance.” He picks up about three more blue wires, one so large he has to heft it onto his shoulder. 

Dib watches silently, not wanting to interrupt. Whatever maintenance he meant seemed like a big deal, and grilling Zim doesn’t really seem to be the best idea right now. 

“My--” He pauses again and speaks so low he's barely audible. “pak. Maintenance.”

Gir wobbles in, no sign of tears on his face. 

“Gir.” Zim calls, and the tiny boy blinks his eyes in recognition. “Help master connect to the grid.”

“SIR.” Gir’s face connects with the floor and he pushes his head across the ground. When he reaches Zim, he picks up several more green wires and Zim steps inside the tube. 

“Zim, what’s going on? What do you mean?”

Zim’s muffled voice echoes through the glass screen of the casing. His shoulders slump as he deftly hooks the wires one by one into the opening ports on his back. 

Dib counts twenty-two cables connected to Zim when Gir finishes handing the remainder to him. 

It does not at all look comfortable.

“Do not panic, I will be fine.”

“Don’t panic? What do you mean don’t--”

All the lights in the room go off at once, including for the second time today, Zim’s lights. 

Inside, Zim ragdolls, pulling the wires down with him as he crumples on the floor, limbs twisting in a way that looks too unnatural, even for an alien, and the shine goes out of his eyes. 

God. Dib really didn’t realize how much he loved his eyes until the light from them left. 

Dib slams on the glass and a fog appears where his breath has rapidly increased, touching the surface. 

“DAMN IT, ZIM.”

Dib’s knees hit the floor and he stays there. 

He doesn’t know when the crying stops. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always a lovely round of applause to my wife @vulpineghost on insta for editing my chapter, which was twice as long this time oof. 
> 
> The art in this chapter was done by yours truly, you can find more of me and my art @stuffedcrabco on insta/twitter/tumblr

**Author's Note:**

> special thanks to vulpineghost on insta for being my editor. You're the real og


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